


Knives Out

by charlotteschaos



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mystery, Post-Hogwarts, Post-Second War with Voldemort, Suspense, Written Pre-Deathly Hallows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-28
Updated: 2005-08-28
Packaged: 2018-06-04 22:19:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 43,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6677569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charlotteschaos/pseuds/charlotteschaos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Several years after the death of Voldemort, a depressed Harry Potter decides to rejoin the world of the living, only to run into his old nemesis Draco Malfoy in a Muggle gay club where things are not as they seem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Laura Laser](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Laura+Laser).



> It might well be less of an h/d story than social commentary with the dressings of sex and mystery woven in. I had a lot of thoughts and themes that went into this, and I thank anyone and everyone who followed it in the often slow-to-come updates. I was very blessed to have Emma Grant as a beta, who helped a lot with pacing and getting scenes much more where they needed to be. A lot of this came from my need to vent over a close friend's death, which again, was why it was so slow in coming out. The final scenes were actually written after I'd gotten about three chapters in, so it was always going to end this way. I apologize if anyone was misled into thinking it was something it wasn't. 
> 
> I'm holding my breath and closing my eyes and taking the plunge. If you tend to stay on top of my writing, this chapter is recognizable as being released in an earlier version, "My Eyes Burn Naked." I said then that I had an idea to continue on it and that if "Half Blood Prince" didn't squash it, that I'd continue. It didn't, so I did. Much love to emmagrant01, ella_bane, Tully, De, and Cravache. Without their encouragement, I probably would've crumbled under the weight of my neurosis and never released it at all. Man, I'm needy.

Harry hadn't spent much time in bars, let alone gay bars. Though he'd known the truth about himself for years, this was one of the few times he'd allowed himself this kind of outlet. It was dark but for the bright lights scanning the dance floor. The place was packed, but even amongst this crowd of people he felt isolated. He pointed at the beer taps to indicate to the bar man in the low-slung tight jeans what he wanted. He didn't care what brand, just something to take the edge off. He was halfway through something that tasted as if it had been dragged through the Thames when a vivacious redhead dotted with freckles bounded up to him, grabbing for his cock and smiling.  
  
His stomach twisted at the appearance of the young man more than the invitation. "No." Harry could barely even hear himself, or maybe he just didn't want to. The boy didn't speak, just shrugged and disappeared into the throng looking more disgruntled than disappointed. Harry continued to scan the swarm. It wasn't long before his gaze settled on a tantalizing vision.  
  
The dancer's hips swayed to the music, lean muscles covered by stretched black fabric. He was in his own universe. Colored lights illuminated his silvery hair and pale, pointed face. A flash of lips and then a curtain of hair feathered over his face, shadowing his visage from view. The shadowy dancer intrigued him, if for no other reason than that he seemed to be dancing _for_ him.  
  
He was fey and stood out in his frailty amongst the twinks in the gay club. The man's coloration should have been Harry's first hint; he was too blinded by desire to care. His skin and hair radiated in the black light when the gaudy spotlights swirled away. He was ethereal, beautiful, and glowed in all of the ways that his long-sleeved shirt and clingy pants absorbed the light. No one dared to dance with him. They were not welcome. He was untouchable; swaying and shifting with his eyes closed, translucent lashes fluttering over skin illuminated blue-white.  
  
Harry made his move, approaching slowly from the bar. His body undulated with the beat, the bass line so strong he felt it throbbing within his veins and into the hardness of his prick, as if it had become his pulse. He groaned as careless dancers pressed against him, thrilling him with the randomness of public frottage, the mutual muttering as other men groped him, feeling his hardness against their fingers, thighs and arses.  
  
Harry slipped behind his mystery dancer, matching his strides. The man's head turned slightly as he sensed his closeness. Their movements slowed, became more controlled until Harry slid his arms around the thin waist. Grinding back against Harry, he pressed his pert arse against his length. Harry's whimper goaded the mystery man to let his head fall back against his shoulder. He turned his face against Harry's, still too close to properly see. He thrust against Harry again, teasing his cock.  
  
Harry smirked and kept one arm up around the other man's chest. His other hand slid down the lean torso, teasing over the brief fabric to dip below the beltline. Finding the swell of the other man's cock, Harry teased his fingers over it. "You're beautiful," Harry whispered against the pale pink ear.  
  
The man answered in a distantly familiar drawl. "I know."  
  
Harry stopped dead, still gripping the other man's prick as his mind ran through a series of faces to match the voice. Almost as if he wanted to deny whom he knew that drawl belonged to.  
  
In a neat turn, Draco Malfoy twirled around in Harry's arms and gazed at him through hazy grey eyes, one of which listed slightly outward. That was a defacement Harry didn't remember from school, and only vaguely from the war. Back then, Malfoy would keep that side of his face turned away from him when they spoke. It was a vanity he'd since discarded. Under the bright blue light, Draco looked more feminine than he did masculine. The luminosity refined the sharpness of his features into something androgynous, or maybe Harry was just tipsy.  
  
Harry stared down at Draco's visage, the few inches he had on him seemed a bigger gap than it was. A thousand thoughts cluttered his mind about where Draco had been since the war, and how he'd ended up at a Muggle dance club. Why Draco was here and why wasn't he screaming about Harry touching him? Every thought shut down as Draco forced his hips forward, sliding his cock against Harry's. "Merlin."  
  
"Here, they cry out for god," Draco said during a break in the music. His hands glided down to grip Harry's arse, and the music flared up again with a frantic tempo. He pulled his hips forward, controlling just how far Harry could move away before Draco ground harder against him.  
  
"Why are you here?" Harry gasped into his ear, shuddering at the stimulation and the dirtiness of doing this here, in public, on the dance floor.  
  
"I'm here to dance and to get fucked. Isn't that why everyone comes here?" Draco slipped a hand between them and cupped Harry's erection. Groaning at the size of it, he slid his other hand into Harry's dark hair and tugged.  
  
It wasn't what Harry was asking, but at this point, he didn't care what kind of answer Malfoy gave. Just so long as he kept touching him. He wasn't even alarmed as Malfoy began to drag him through the club, wading through the sea of bodies with his hand on Harry's cock like a short leash.  
  
The arrogance, the haughty sneer-- Malfoy had not lost these simple graces. Not even war could rob him of it. People moved without being asked, as if they sensed the cold burn of Draco's glare before it reached them.  
  
Under the harsh fluorescent blaze of the bathroom lights, Draco appeared feral with eyes darkened by want. In a heartbeat, Draco was on him, crashing them into a stall, kissing him brutally. Draco bit at his bottom lip as he clawed open Harry's trousers.  
  
Barely able to keep up, Harry peeled the tight fabric down Draco's narrow hips. The hard smack of Draco's prick against his belly sent startling chills up his spine. Harry felt something cool and wet sliding over his length and looked down in surprise to see Draco unfurling a rubber down his shaft. Not that he was unfamiliar with this practice, but being that they were both wizards, Harry found it peculiar that Draco wouldn't use magic. He was about to write it off to paranoia about using magic in the presence of Muggles when Draco whispered, "I'm positive," and turned around, shuffling his pants down and drew a leg out of them. Draco pressed his cheek against the cold, red metal door and gripped his hands over the top.  
  
Harry blinked. "AIDS, Draco?"  
  
"Shut up and fuck me, Potter. It's safe with that on." Draco's eyes lowered. Even with a death sentence over his head, naked and splayed against a dingy ochre stall door, he still carried a proud dignity that even a grimy bathroom fuck couldn't tarnish.  
  
"Right." Harry touched his latex-covered prick, it was lubricated enough. Adjusting himself against Draco's hole, he pushed in smoothly, pressing his chest to Draco's back.  
  
Draco met his strokes with a vicious force, either to prove something or have it over with. His face flushed and his skin glistened as his fingers tried to dig into the metal.  
  
The bathroom was an orgy of long sniffs, low grunts, moans, running taps, and murmured conversations. It was alive with the scents of sex, coppery come, the tang of urine and antiseptic soap. Harry contributed his loud gasping and Draco his wailing cries as their bodies clapped together. Releasing a hand from the cubicle, Draco wrapped it around his cock. He hung loosely by his fingers from the door, the crown of his head pressed against it as he labored against Harry.  
  
Being inside of Draco felt constrictive, which was surprising considering the man dragged people from the dance floor into the bathroom for sex. The way Draco matched his thrusts and bore down around him made Harry's vision tunnel as he tried to hold on. At last, he heard Draco gasp and felt him seize up. Harry stopped concentrating and just let go, giving an enunciated thrust of his release. He pumped into him a few more times, finishing himself off. Harry's attention fixed on how Draco's spandex shirt that had rolled midway up his back. He slid his fingers affectionately along the exposed spine. "How long?"  
  
"It was a good five minutes." Draco grabbed some tissue to wipe his leavings from the door and threw them into the toilet as he righted himself. He put his hand on Harry's chest to push him away, but paused, staring at the spot on Harry's forehead where the scar once lived.  
  
Harry ignored the pointed gaze and pulled off the rubber and tossed it on top of the soiled toilet paper. "I meant, how long have you been positive?"  
  
Draco shrugged. "A few years. Snape's working on a potion..."  
  
Snape. A person he hadn't wanted to think about since the war ended. He pushed the greasy git out of his mind and reached out to pull Draco closer, hoping to comfort him. "I'm sorry."  
  
Draco batted his hands away and instead bent down to gather up his trousers. He struggled to get the taut plackets to come together over his emaciated frame.  
  
"Is that why you disappeared?" asked Harry.  
  
"I disappeared because the war was over and I had no reason to endure yours or anyone else's loathsome existence any longer." Draco finished his struggle and buttoned his trousers and tucked his shirt back in. "I spent the whole war worried I was going to die and never even came that close. Nothing more severe than enduring the Cruciatus, and... well... Greyback," he said as he stroked his finger near his damaged eye. Harry imagined that must've been part of the punishment from Voldemort for not killing Dumbledore himself. "Ironic, isn't it?"  
  
The mutilation didn't ruin Draco's face, in Harry's opinion. Still, he was surprised it didn't make Draco shy away from being in public. That's what made Draco striking, Harry decided. Draco's good looks were no longer a blessing of genes; his beauty was defiant. "You could come back, you know."  
  
Draco snorted and leaned against the cubicle wall. Loud grunts emanated from the stall next to them, an echo of what they'd just done.  
  
"They'll find a cure." Harry was desperate for Draco to come back with him to the Wizarding world, or at least to his flat to talk more about this. He reached out to caress Draco's cheek.  
  
Draco leaned into Harry's touches briefly. Then he stepped back. "Disappearing was the smartest thing I ever did." He gave Harry a wry grin, and then leaving nothing but the memory of his smile like the enigmatic Cheshire cat, he vanished with a loud crack.  
  
Harry reached out and stroked the air where he'd stood, pondering Draco's parting words. He was a bit annoyed with the use of magic in a conspicuously Muggle place, however it didn't seem like anyone was counting who came and went from a stall. Everyone had their own agenda of getting off on coke or sex. No one cared that Draco had vanished into thin air. No one would look for him or miss him.  
  
The idea that no one would miss Draco stuck at Harry. Gone were the glory days of Seeker against Seeker, hero against spoilt nemesis. Now it was just a lost playboy and a retired Auror whom few would miss. Harry closed his eyes, trying to figure out where these thoughts were leading. Should he go after him? But where would he go? How would he find him? Draco's Apparition was too sudden to have used his Auror tricks to follow.  
  
At the moment he had no leads, no hope and nothing but a possibly afterglow-loneliness-inspired yen to find Draco and ask him all of the questions he didn't get to. It was impractical to chase down someone who didn't want to be found.  
  
Trying to be sensible, he drove the idea out of his mind and flushed the toilet. He watched the rubber and tissue swirl and vanish thinking about how so many things in his life just spiraled away. He'd had enough excitement for tonight, so he drifted back out of the club alone. Near the door, he thought he spied a flash of platinum hair. His heart raced and he started towards the exit, perhaps Draco had just Apparated outside. The woman turned and smiled shyly at Harry before he reached the gathering of young ladies who were all giggling and looking nervous. He halfheartedly returned the smile and then turned sharply to find an alleyway to use to Apparate home from.  
  
He was _not_ going to look for Draco. Definitely _not_.


	2. Chapter 2

After a fortnight of sleepless nights of fretting over Draco and how he was doing, Harry found himself speaking to a disinterested non-magical mirror. "I want to see that cocksure smile again. I want to feel him again. _I want to save him_ ," Save him how? There was no cure. His carelessness had won him this disease. Or maybe it was just ignorance. Who knew what Malfoy misunderstood when he went out into the Muggle world? Or why he'd done it. Being a spy amongst the Death Eaters couldn't have been easy, but that didn't automatically turn you into a slut. Maybe it was _because_ he didn't want saving that Harry felt so compelled. Or perhaps Harry was just bored with retired life.

Shortly after breakfast, Harry Apparated in front of the fenced off Wiltshire manor that belonged to the Malfoy family. He wasn't sure what he'd expected to see. Malfoy had withdrawn from the Wizarding world, or so the rumors went. Harry assumed that meant that Draco would have abandoned the manor, but instead it showed signs of life. He heard a high-pitched squeal; Harry grabbed the bars and scanned the garden until he saw a dazzling white head of hair and a small, chubby face filled with glee.

Behind the child giving chase was a larger, dark-haired woman whose form appeared familiar and yet Harry couldn't quite place it. She gathered up the shrieking toddler to melodious coos of, "I've got you! I've got you now!"

"Mummy... a man!" The child caught sight of Harry and pointed to the gates. Harry gave a small wave and a smile. The woman peered to the gates and tilted her head. Shifting the child onto her hip, she started for him.

Harry backed up and ruffled his hair, kicking at the stone beneath his feet as he tried to sort out what he was going to say. The child was clearly Malfoy's, which summoned a new set of questions. But such questions would not be answered until the woman finished her long trek to the front. He looked up and squinted. The light of the sun lit her from behind, making it difficult to resolve her face until she was almost upon him. "Bullstrode?"

"Potter." Her greeting was stern but questioning. "And it's Malfoy, now."

The child stared at him unblinking. He cupped his hand to his mother's ear as if telling a secret, but his voice was loud enough to hear. "Harry Potter, Mum?" She nodded to him and kissed his temple and eyed Harry.

"You... that's Malfoy's?" Harry stepped closer to the gate again to squint at the grey-eyed boy who was shyly watching him, going over his features with unflinching curiosity.

She looked at the child and smiled. "His name is Ursius. Yes, he's Draco's. I'm wondering if he charmed him to make him look so much like him. Almost looks like I had nothing to do with it." Millicent patted Ursius's head affectionately as he reached out a chubby hand to Harry.

Harry was speechless. Malfoy had a family? He was carrying on in clubs with men, he was positive, and he... was married? He reached out to touch the child's hand and the small, sticky fingers wrapped around his and he grinned. "I'm touching him, Mum! I'm touching the heeeero!"

Millicent said nothing to her child's reaction, but continued to keep a keen eye on Harry. "What brings you here, Potter?"

He closed his eyes and slowly withdrew his hand from the child's grasp. He couldn't tell her. He couldn't tell Malfoy's wife what they'd done in the club. How could he break that kind of news to her, to anyone? He should have stayed away. "I was just... around. I don't think I've ever properly seen the Malfoy Manor. I was just curious."

"You were looking for _him_." Her tone was neutral and her face bore that same aggravating stoicism it often did at Hogwarts. Just another hard-faced Slytherin girl, he supposed. She was almost mannish, in Harry's estimation. Then he felt guilty for his harsh judgment and looked down.

"No. No... Nothing like that." Did she even know how sick he was? Did she care?

"He doesn't live here." Her tone was flat, he could feel her gaze boring into him. He couldn't face it.

"Father?" the child asked, perking up at the mention, clearly curious.

"Yes, your father."

"Is he going to visit?" Ursius sounded hopeful. Too hopeful. It tugged at Harry's heart.

"No, Ursius. Not that I know of." Millicent kissed his head again and cuddled him closer.

Harry looked up at Millicent and Ursius and asked, "Is that because he's sick?"

Ursius nodded. "Father's very sick. He doesn't look sick, but Mummy says..."

Millicent was staring at Potter in surprise. "He only tells people that when he's..." Her eyes traced up and down Harry as realization dawned on her face. ?"He has a flat in Muggle London, that's all I really know. He won't be found unless he wants to be. He does visit sometimes, but I get little warning besides an owl. I didn't know you were..."

There was no way to conceal or control his blush. It was maddening, almost as maddening as how calm Millicent seemed to be about all of this. "But you're... married... and... Ursius..."

"He wanted an heir. My partner and I, at the time, wanted a child. She's... since departed. He's since... well. I suppose you know." She squeezed Ursius and he whined quietly.

"This is father's friend? Father's friends with the heeero?"

She didn't know how to answer that, obviously, given her odd expression. "Yes, he went to school with him."

"Oooh! You too, mum?" Ursius seemed highly pleased with this and bounced on her hip, Millicent looked more uncomfortable.

"Yes, Ursius." She kissed his temple again.

"You were best friends!" he squeaked, wiggling in her arms.

Harry reached between the bars and stroked the blushing, chubby cheek and nodded with a wry grin. "Yes. We were all the best of friends." He winked to Millicent, who appeared nonplussed. "I should go. I've taken up enough of your afternoon." He stepped back and dropped his hand, preparing to Apparate away.

"Tell father I miss him," Ursius called.

"I will." Harry nodded and then looked down as he pictured his own flat to focus his Apparition. He would keep that promise. He was going to find Malfoy and tell him that his son missed him, and that the Wizarding world missed him, and maybe even that Harry missed him.

\--

Harry sat in an easy chair amongst his boxes in his perpetually unpacked flat. It was one of a series of unremarkable flats that he never quite unpacked in. Nowhere ever felt like home. Not really. Or maybe it was just knowing what was inside of those boxes is what kept him from staying more than six months, when the hire was over.

Eyes closed and mouth open with his head resting on the back of the chair; he continued to stroke himself. He ignored the porn on the screen, but left the sound up, listening to the wild groaning and grunts of whatever tawdry scene was taking place. Instead of watching, Harry pictured his brief time with Draco. The way he felt, the way he pushed back insistently against him. How he clung to the metal wall, muffling his grunts against the grime of the red door.

With a stunted grunt followed by a long exhale of relief; Harry's prick shot dollops of white come onto his worn, graying t-shirt. Eyes opening to the blurred ceiling, he sighed again. He'd tried, in the past few weeks, to forget about his encounter with Draco and the weird discovery of his neglected family life. But his thoughts always circled 'round back to Draco and how scared and alone he must be. Not that Harry had any rational reason to believe that Draco was either of those things, other than that Harry would be.

Harry wadded his shirt around the wet spot and then pulled it off over his head and tossed it at a stack of unread copies of _The Daily Prophet_. Then he grabbed his glasses off of the side table and pushed them onto his face. Using his wand to change the channel, he settled in on a Wizarding news show and turned the sound down as he watched the images buzz past.

_Severus Snape, one-time teacher at Hogwarts, promoted to Headmaster_ , flashed over the screen along with an image of the past Potions master-cum-Death Eater-cum double agent-cum... Harry didn't even know. Even the sight of the man irritated him, let alone the idea of him running Dumbledore's school. Even though Dumbledore hadn't been alive for years, and McGonagall had passed on earlier that year. But it wasn't just that it was Snape that was resonating, something else buzzed at the back of Harry's mind. Snape. That's right. Draco said that Snape was working on a potion to cure him. A lead, that is, if he chose to pursue it.

\--

On the grounds of Hogwarts Harry spied at Hagrid's rebuilt hut. Evidence pointed to Hagrid still living there; some things never change. Some things should. Harry avoided him. He wasn't ready to deal with the jolly half-giant. The huge wooden doors to the castle loomed as ominous as ever, the same doors he, Ron and Hermione had tumbled in and out of so many times on the way in or out of one great adventure or another. He closed his eyes and opened them again, trying to block out the nightmares he was plagued with: Ron and Hermione screaming at him for failing, their spectral fingers in his face, blaming, and shouting. But it was not true. He knew in his heart of hearts that were they alive, they'd forgive him for not being fast enough or the sort of friend that he should have been. The problem was, his guilty conscience had no proof, and so he carried the blame like a boulder in his belly.

_It should've been me, me instead of them. I was made to fight the war, to win it. Not to deal with what happens after it's over and I have no point, nor purpose_ Harry inner dialogue was cruel and perturbed him, but there was little he could think of to refute it.

Snape parted the huge doors and slipped outside, closing it behind him as if concealing something. The school was empty. Still Harry fancied he saw Ron making faces behind Snape and Hermione trying to shush him for it. It made Harry smile.

"Wipe that smile off of your face, Potter, even as an adult you're an insolent fool," Severus snapped. He folded his arms and glared at Harry, who was now fully his size. His equal. His better as far as Harry and most of the world was concerned.

"I thought we could meet in your office..." Harry started to move past Snape into the castle. His fingers clutched his wand as he barely restrained himself from rattling off a number of hexes he'd vowed he would cast on Snape. It pained him that there had been enough uncertainty about whether Dumbledore's death being a conspiracy to keep the Ministry for putting Snape in Azkaban where he belonged. Even though the information sent through Draco had been invaluable, Harry along with a fair bit of the Ministry, felt it wasn't enough to make up for murder.

Whipping his arm out, Snape caught Harry by the crook of his arm and swung him back. "This won't take long. There is no need to upset the rest of the faculty with your presence. As I wrote in response to your inquiry, I do not know where he is. He comes to test potions when I have them, that is all."

"But I _need_ to find him, professor. It's really, very important." Seeing Snape's unimpressed expression, he added, "and _personal_."

Snape took a step back and gave him a guarded look. "Are you infected?"

"No, no, not that, nothing like that." Harry blushed and pushed his glasses back up his nose.

His dark eyes bored into Harry's before he spoke. "It would be safer if you did not pursue this."

"Safer? Safer how?" Harry took a step forward, getting into Snape's personal space.

Snape seemed temporarily at a loss, as if he'd said something he shouldn't have. "He is very ill. What you engaged in with him is dangerous," he said, his calm demeanor returned.

Harry felt his face turning red, but his wasn't the moment to play coy. "What are you not telling me?" He got closer to Snape, sliding his hand over the wand in his pocket in a threat that Harry would take this information by any means possible. He hated that Snape kept things from him, and it was obvious that Snape enjoyed keeping things from him for that very reason.

"You've no authority here, Potter," barked Snape as he eyed Harry's hand in his pocket. "You quit playing Auror years ago. Stop trying to save Malfoy. He doesn't need _you_." With that, Snape wheeled around to step back inside.

Harry was left with more questions than before. There had to be more afoot here than Draco's disease. "Don't you care about what he's doing?" he shouted, betting now that random sex wasn't the worst of it.

Pausing with his hand on the door, Snape didn't even turn to speak with Harry. "I care more deeply about that man than you will ever know."

"Why won't you let me help? Just tell me where he is, especially if he's in danger!" Harry stayed where he was, feeling that Snape was going to break and give him a clue.

Snape remained unmoving, probably deciding whether it was to his advantage to tell Harry anything or not. Turning his head to glare at Harry, his hooked nose and livid eyes, made him appear like an angered bird ready to strike. "You certainly _wouldn't_ find him at those clubs you went to." Snape pushed through the door.

Nodding to Snape's backwards clue, he called after him, hoping to squeeze out one last bit of information, "What if he hides?"

Giving one final glare at Harry, he slammed the tall door. The muttering and glow could only be Snape hexing it against his attempt to follow.

Harry turned around and looked over the grounds. Acromantulas. Fang. Quidditch on the pitch. Studying by the lake. The spot where Dumbledore's crumpled body had lain. Horcruxes. The forest. Hermione. Unicorns. Ron. It all flooded back and it all made him melancholy. Walking outside of the wards, he Apparated to his flat.

\--

Wearing tight trousers and an even tighter thin shirt all in white, Harry made quite the blacklight spectacle of himself in no less than three notoriously gay hot spots. One dance club, the others... not quite so reputable as to call themselves dance clubs. Gentlemen's clubs, perhaps. If there were any gentlemen there, Harry didn't meet them. He spent the night a glowing beacon in the hopes of attracting Malfoy's attention.

Like moths to a flame, Harry managed to gather interest from everyone else. He was pawed at, nearly tossed off when he attempted to go to the bathroom, and pushed against the wall and kissed. From what Harry knew from his first encounter with Malfoy, these were exactly the sorts of places that he would inhabit. But after several hours of not finding him, he gave up and trudged away, figuring he'd find some empty alleyway to Apparate from.

Along the way, he found a dingy eatery whose lights shone almost green over the yellow tile and fake pine Formica tables. It was empty but for a pair of the working class off from nightshift and a rather blank-looking waitress with stereotypical purple-red hair. She leaned against the counter in her powder blue uniform, pretending to care what the men were relating to her. The rumble in his stomach reminded him that he'd skipped dinner in order to get to the clubs early in case Draco pulled early. How much he had drunk while looking added to his queasy starvation.

Thick, hollow bells clunked rather than chimed and the inhabitants blandly eyed him, but didn't appear distressed that he was dressed like a gay Elvis. Harry ordered the soup at the counter, paid, and took his order to a table and sat with his back to the windows so that he could glare into his tepid soup without being observed.

"I think the cook tosses off in the cream soup. So, I cannot endorse eating that, unless you just love the taste of come. And, if you do, I could help you with your need in a more intimate setting."

Draco had managed to slide himself into the booth behind Harry and whispered into his ear. Harry turned around, but he was gone. Harry half stood at the table, peering outside, only to receive a light kick under the table.

"Merlin, Potty, you're slow. What happened to Seeker reflexes or Auror training? Fucking drunk." His eyes glittered with an amused malice as his long hands wrapped around the discordant, bright white mug that appeared to hold a weak tea. Harry glanced his own avocado green bowl and the stack of matching dishes.

"I was drinking," Harry responded, his eyes still wide in disbelief that Draco was there. He was actually there and seemingly out of nowhere. He wondered just how intoxicated he was to have missed Draco's arrival. Maybe Draco snuck in while he was paying for his food? Harry shook his head to try and clear it.

"And taking in a bit of the scenery as you went. I saw," said Draco, before he sipped at his tea. His slower eye listed again to the side slightly, as if eyeing the cooking staff. "I was going to call you the boy who stalked, but I'm starting to think Saint Slutty is more accurate. Or Sharkhead, since the scar is gone and all."

"Coming from _you_ , that's rich," Harry answered, pushing the soup aside.

Draco pulled the soup towards him and away from Harry. He stared at it apprehensively. "I was kidding, Potty. I don't think these Muggles actually toss off in the soup. I'd be shocked if that one could get it up." He nodded towards the elderly man in the kitchen who looked almost too decrepit to live. The lights played over his wrinkled face, making his skin look waxy; his eyes were like black holes.

Staring at the man, and then to the woman, whose skin tone fared no better under the fluorescents, he finally looked at Draco. His eyes were a bit sunken; there were dark circles and he appeared pointier than he remembered in school. Gaunt. And so very tired. But his eyes, even the lazy one, were alive in ways that the workers of this late-night restaurant weren't. "I'm still not eating it."

"That's probably wise," Draco agreed. He was smiling a bit too broadly at Harry; it set him on edge, made him feel like he was on the outside of a very important joke. In a blink, the contents were gone.

"I paid for that!" Harry insisted, glancing at the empty bowl and then up at Draco, who appeared irritated. He leaned in closer to Draco, "And you shouldn't be doing magic in front of Muggles!"

"I'll buy you another bowl somewhere else, another time," he answered, giving little other than a dismissive wave to Harry's concern about his excessive use of magic. He stood up, slid his finger along Harry's jaw line and leaned in to kiss him softly.

Harry lost himself into the warm wetness of the kiss, forgetting his hunger, the greasy eatery, the lost soup and even why Draco showed up and how he'd snuck past. Draco broke the kiss and Harry gazed at him curiously. "Why can't I eat the soup here?"

Draco looked around; the patrons were eyeing them inquisitively. When Draco faced Harry again, he had paled quite a bit and his face took on a panicked aggression. "We don't have time for your foolishness, Potter. If you're going to stalk me, I can't stop you. But you need to be on the ball." His hand slid down the front of Harry's shirt.

"What do you mean we don't have time? What's going on?" The employees were staring at Draco with agitated interest. Harry tried to divine meaning from Draco's pained expression. Before he could ascertain any coherent meaning from him, Draco yanked him to his feet so hard that it nearly knocked the table over. He dragged him with him to the door and hustled him out, following as Harry tripped over his feet and landed on the pavement.

Briefly, Draco appeared apologetic, but then his expression changed to a frazzled hardness as he spat, "I don't have time to fucking baby-sit. You're down the rabbit hole when you follow me. _Don't take what's offered, question everything, and for fuck's sake, eat before you come_. Don't come looking for me again, Potter. _I'll find you_."

Harry reached out for Draco, but he had already Disapparated. Grabbing his wand in the hopes of casting a tracer spell, it got caught in his pants and after a few tugs, it didn't matter anyway. The residue was gone.

Though he was a bit unsettled with how harshly he'd been shuffled out, and aggravated at Draco's irresponsible and illegal Apparition in front of the restaurant, he couldn't forget that strange look on his face before he'd disappeared. The notion that Draco was trying to protect him crossed his mind as noted the address and then walked around it to find a secluded spot. Deciding that the alleyway was empty enough, Harry Apparated back to the door of his flat. He wasn't sure how Draco would contact him, but considering the odd warning he got and the panicked look on Draco's face, Harry settled on doing what he was asked and wait.


	3. Chapter 3

Ten days. Draco had left Harry hanging for ten days. That was more than enough for Harry to lose patience and start to panic. Particularly when he didn't have a job to keep him busy. It gave him time to run every scenario possible of what might've happened to Draco through his worried mind before he finally ended on the one that seemed most likely. Draco must be fucking with him.  
  
 _I'll find you, indeed,_ Harry thought, looking in the mirror at his club clothes. He was new to going out and meeting people. He supposed it was his bad luck to have run into Draco so early in his dating career. He'd intended to have loads of debauched fun with random strangers. Instead he found himself obsessed, yet again, with his classmate. Draco had always had a way of insinuating himself into Harry's thoughts. He remembered sixth year where Ron told him to stop obsessing about Malfoy. Old habits died hard.  
  
In the club, Harry rested his elbow on the bar and sipped a vodka tonic, peering around the dance floor. This time he decided to go with being understated, wearing all black as Draco had done that first night. The clothing clung to him like a second skin-- binding and sticky. Harry longed for his usual baggy jeans, or even a good flowing robe. He didn't know how these people did it night after night.  
  
Scanning over the bobbing heads and blinking lights, his eyes sought out bright white, chin-length hair. He wasn't seeing it in that configuration. There were highlights and close cropped bleached hair, but nothing of the luminous mane... luminous mane? Harry shook his head at himself and drained the last of the vodka tonic and set it on the bar, nodding for another.   
  
When he turned around, his eyes caught sight not of an androgynous blond, but an androgynous face all the same. Only it was framed by a shock of electric blue hair that stuck up in purposeful angles. The person looked familiar, somehow. It was something in the way that they moved, even while dancing-- almost clumsy. Watching the person trip and then try to pick up the beat again, it occurred to Harry that he really did know her. But what was _she_ doing _here_?   
  
Tonks had certainly done her best to appear mannish, and now that Harry was really looking at her, he realized she didn't have to work all that hard. After their years as partners at the Ministry, how he could've missed how androgynous she appeared?  
  
He wondered if she was here to do reconnaissance. _Or maybe she was another of Draco's lovers_. He rubbed his temples to get a grip on himself. He really needed to stop thinking that Tonks was into incest; first with Sirius and now with Draco. She'd be mortified if she knew.  
  
The beat switched and it brought Harry back to his senses. While this wasn't officially a stakeout, he needed to pay attention to what was going on. He scanned the crowded dance floor; it didn't take long to key in on the violent blue hair. She was engaged in an intense conversation with a young man whose familiar appearance stopped Harry's heart. Glaring at the man in complete incredulity, he was flooded with unpleasant memories from the war. Gathering Horcruxes, piercing screams, watching friends die, and seeing the man he was staring at hit the forest ground.   
  
Harry didn't just know that Theodore Nott was dead-- he helped hide the body.  
  
The Ministry officially listed Nott as missing, but Harry knew the truth of what had happened. As far as Harry was concerned, he was the only one alive who knew the truth. The mere memory of those events and how helpless Harry had been to stop Nott's death made him feel queasy, especially since he'd helped to cover it up. Seeing Nott in a club like this filled him with a terrible dread.   
  
At some point, Nott must've turned to look at him, for now they were sharing an angry stare down. It was as if the club had formed a special tunnel of light between them. Nott's chest heaved and his teeth were bared in a sneer, a look that must have been taught in the dank dungeons to all of Slytherin. Just as mysteriously as the club had parted for their stare-down, the dancing clubbers crashed through the invisible barrier and eye contact was broken.   
  
Harry found himself staring into the dilated eyes of a young man at least a decade younger than himself. His stomach was entirely too wrung up in knots to hear the indecent proposal from the glittery bare-chested club kid, so he brushed him off. He had forgotten everything for a moment, including Malfoy, his mind filled with a singular thought: find Nott.   
  
Thinking he saw the back of Nott's head on its way to the bathrooms, Harry fought his way through the crowd to get to the loo. It took much longer than Harry thought was reasonable, but the club-goers kept stopping him, trying to touch him. It seemed as if suddenly the club wanted nothing more than to keep Harry from getting to the lavatory.   
  
Upon entering the achingly bright room, Harry's gaze fixed immediately on the reedy head he'd been following lowered against Draco's shoulders. Draco's stringy legs were wrapped around the Nott's slender waist. Draco's head was tilted back; cheeks flushed and face glistening. Nott pounded into him, arse muscles flexing above his trousers that were pulled down just enough for him to fuck Draco.  
  
Nearly choking on rage and confusion, Harry was immobilized into doing little other than staring at this distressing tableau. His pulse raced faster as a fresh rush of rage-fueled adrenaline shot through his veins. He opened his mouth to shout, cut off by Draco's exaggerated moans. At that, he went utterly quiet, the room seeming to reduce itself to only his breathing and the hard slapping sounds of Draco being fucked in front of him.  
  
"Fuck... yes... harder, harder!" Draco cried, making the other men engaged in their own activities either look up in envy or groan in mutual satisfaction.   
  
Harry kept his anger to himself, forcing his face into studied neutrality. He strode over to the two men, and turned his back against the wall and looked into the eyes of-- someone. Someone who was not Nott. He blinked and looked down. "You can be next... in an hour or so, if you buy me a few drinks," the stranger grunted.   
  
"No, that's umm..." Harry looked down to see Draco's hand wrapped around his own prick. The bright pink head bobbed out from between his fingers and vanished again, spit-slicked and purple.   
  
"Want to suck it, Potty?" Draco's head was tilted down, watching Harry, a sly smirk on his face, although his eyes were burning with derision. His hair stuck to the grime of the walls and his shirt was riding up as the rabbity-looking man rammed him against the wall repeatedly.   
  
Looking up into Draco's eyes, Harry could feel little other than intense rage that Draco was here fucking this man-- doing it in front of him. That Draco had probably been back here every night for the past week and a half, whilst Harry waited at home, worried about what happened to him. He wanted to punch him, to see blood smeared over that sneering face. He wanted to give him something worse than that slightly listing eye to remember him by. He wanted to leave a lasting mark on Draco Malfoy that would teach him to fuck with him this way.  
  
Harry grabbed Draco by the waist and yanked him away from the stranger, ignoring the shouts of protest. He dragged Draco into a stall and wrapped his arms securely around Draco him, disregarding Draco's cruel cackling.   
  
"Can't wait your turn, Potty?"  
  
It was time for decisive action, Harry Apparated them both back to Harry's unpacked flat. Before Draco had a chance to make yet another comment, Harry slammed his fist into Draco's face.   
  
Draco cupped his hand over his jaw; his other hand brandished his wand. He pressed it to Harry's neck. Before Harry even knew what was happening, he felt pressure on the back of his calf and then he was tumbling to the floor, Draco atop him. "Get off!" Harry shouted.  
  
Looking little other than amused and flushed with the activity and the growing red on his jaw, Draco responded. "I was just about to, but some lackwit dragged me from a perfectly good shag to his dump of a flat."  
  
Flailing his fists at Draco, Harry was frustrated that the man had pulled away, rolling back to his feet into a squatting position. Worse yet, he was cackling again.   
  
"What is _wrong with you_?" Harry bellowed. "You said you'd get back to me!"  
  
"Could you be any more of a girl, Potty?" Draco pocketed his wand, a bemused expression on his face. He appeared to be considering something. "Is this all about how I didn't call after our bathroom tryst? Because seriously, amongst my great number of fucks; it was utterly forgettable."   
  
Harry sat up, feeling murderous. "No. I was worried about you. It's not about-- forgettable?"   
  
Draco shifted so that he could sit on the floor and smirked. His bad eye dodged Harry's glower. Harry mused that it made it seem as if Draco wasn't paying as much attention as he was. He bet Draco used that to his advantage frequently. " _Utterly_."  
  
That was pretty demoralizing, or should have been. Harry sucked his front teeth and shook his head. "You would've told me at the time if it was bad. You're not one to hold back with things like that. What was with the soup? Why wouldn't you let me eat it? Why didn't you owl?"  
  
All at once, Draco was on him, pushing Harry to the floor and squirming his hips against his. Harry wrapped his arms around him, grinding their bodies together. Draco was all sharp angles, and his kiss had turned so fierce it was almost like they were biting each other. Harry shoved him back and stared at the enthralled look on Draco's face. Draco started to lower himself to kiss Harry again and Harry rolled them over, putting himself on top of Draco. Then he grabbed Draco by the front of his shirt and hauled them both up, feeling like he was being driven mad.   
  
Neither said a word. Harry backed Draco up into his messy bedroom. It was littered with dirty dishes and an unmade bed-- signs of a withered, depressed life. It was the room of a rather depressed man, one who had been waiting. "Your place is a fucking sty, Potty."  
  
In response, Harry threw Draco onto the bed. Dishes sitting on the other side of the full-sized bed clattered. Draco shoved them the rest of the way off, not caring about the cheap stoneware or the noise it made. He yanked off his shirt, watching Harry mirror the action. Harry went for his own pants as Draco dug into his pocket for a condom.   
  
Knocking it away, Harry pulled his wand. "There are charms for that. I looked them up."   
  
"I always suspected you could read. Must've been a novelty in Gryffindor." Draco wriggled out of his trousers as Harry spelled his prick and Draco's.   
  
"I'd think a slutty Wizard might bother to learn such things." Harry mouthed another incantation and his hand filled with a warm, slippery substance that he slicked over himself.   
  
"Oh, I think a slutty Wizard might, but since he fucks Muggles it doesn't come up often." Draco spread himself open before Harry, wrapping his hand around his prick as he flashed a defiant, daring smirk.  
  
Harry took a moment to appreciate the vision of the sharp-featured, alabaster-skinned Slytherin splayed over his navy blue dime store poly-fiber comforter. His body undulated, lithe muscles flexing as Draco's hips bucked to help his tossing off. Such a wanton little whore. He leaned down to slide his tongue over Draco's cock. Draco's body stiffened in uncertainty; obviously he hadn't done this without a condom on in quite a while. But soon enough, Harry felt him relax into it.  
  
Mouthing the prick and sucking it deeply, Harry teased Draco a few times just to the cusp of completion before he finally let it slip from his lips. Draco groaned in protest, throwing his head back and half balancing on it. It caused his back to arch up off of the bed. Draco's expression, closed eyes and furrowed brow, made it clear that he had no idea how beautiful and vulnerable he looked like this-- so flushed, sweaty and frustrated. He needed this, needed Harry to fuck him, to fill him. He scooted closer to the edge of the bed.  
  
Harry pushed inside of him. Draco hissed, "yessss..." through his teeth. Harry waited a moment, feeling the pliant muscles inside of Draco waver and then relax, allowing Harry to slide all the way inside of him. Harry kissed, sucked and bit at Draco's shoulder and neck. Kissing up to his jaw line, he wetted it by drawing his tongue along it. His body worked, pushing, filling heaving, plowing deep inside of Draco. He found the spot inside of him and grabbed up one of Draco's legs and pushed it up. Forcing Draco's knee next to his ear Harry pushed deeper inside of him.  
  
"Fuck!" Draco cried, furiously fisting his prick. His body trembled under Harry's; he was getting close. Harry increased his pace, feeling now not so much their hips ramming together as the tight heat surrounding him and the wonderful prickle of nerve endings-- nearly tickling-- sending his body on edge. Close. So very close. Soon he would explode. He could feel it building in his head, between his eyes; shooting through his cock. He could feel warmth spreading between his and Draco's sweat-slicked chests. Draco had come, too. Come on himself, from their fucking on this dirty bed in Harry's god awful flat.   
  
_Forgettable, indeed_.  
  
Harry grunted to Draco and released his leg. It fell to rest at the side of Harry's bed and Draco was left wordless and panting. His stroking hand remained trapped between them and the other mauled the bedcover.   
  
"If you ever expect me to come back here, you're going to have to clean and get better bedclothes," Draco panted.   
  
"Well, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't come back for another _forgettable fuck_ , so I figure 'why bother?'" Harry pulled himself out of Draco and grabbed his wand off of the nightstand and cleaned them off.  
  
"Oh, so you _do_ know cleaning spells. I wondered." Draco moved up to his elbows and was sneering, but he didn't seem to be in any hurry to leave.  
  
Blushing slightly at the state of his room, Harry spelled away the messes, sending the dishes all to the kitchen sink and the piles of books ordered on the bookshelf. His clothes floated to the hamper. Even the ones that were probably clean could use a real scrub, he wagered. "I know loads of them."  
  
Draco grinned and peeled back the covers. Sliding out from under Harry, he got under them. He ignored the surprise on Harry's face. "I would normally never do this, but we have to get up early in the morning."  
  
"We?" Harry liked the idea of Draco staying, although he did wonder where they were going to go. "Where are _we_ going?"  
  
Draco had turned over so that his back was to Harry. Looking over his shoulder, he flashed his trademark smirk. "To church."


	4. Chapter 4

Harry looked around the church at all of the pale-faced Muggles hunched over the pews in front of them, their lips moving in silent prayer over strings of plastic prayer beads. The carpet was blood red and led up to a square oak altar. Above them hung electric lanterns meant to appear old-fashioned and candle-lit. Each arched window was filled with another saint or a picture of Jesus looking benevolently down at followers, their faces the picture of calm piety. All around the church hung gruesome depictions of Jesus on the cross-- each one gorier than the previous. Jesus in agony, Jesus suffering for sins, Jesus with thorns in his head and a gash on his side, pinned to the cross with nothing but a rag to cover his shameful nudity. Harry wondered if this was all to be believed, how everyone thought the son of god had managed to keep his rags so artfully over his cock.  
  
The priest, flanked by two altar boys, rushed up the aisle as the parishioners sat back in the pews. Draco nodded to Harry to move from his knees to do the same. One altar boy brandished a long pole with a cross, which he set into the altar. The other boy held a book and a small lantern-like object that a fragrant grey smoke burned from, he opened the book over the altar and both boys found their spots at the back of the stage. So far, nothing seemed out of sorts. "I don't understand. It just looks like a regular Catholic service to me. What are you showing me, Malfoy?"  
  
Instead of explaining, Draco pulled a missalette from the oak cubby in front of him that also held a Bible and looked over the order of the service. He pressed his finger against the notation for Holy Communion and tapped it. The service carried on at a brisk pace. The monotone responses from the congregation sent chills up his spine. He kept his eyes on the page, following along as best he could through the rites. "And blessed be his kingdom, now and for ever. Amen." Harry watched Draco's motions as he genuflected. He wasn't quite as fast or precise as the rest of the parishioners, but he appeared more than passing familiar with the rituals. Before Harry knew it, he was back on the pillowed kneeler.   
  
The congregation rose and started to move in an ordered, well-practiced progression to the front to receive their bread and blood of the Christ. Harry had that same unsettling feeling that he'd had in the diner, that there was something just a little... off... about these people. He figured that churches just made him uncomfortable since he wasn't religious. "Did you convert?" Harry whispered, noting that they weren't getting up to receive.   
  
"No. I wouldn't convert to what they are, Potter." Draco looked solemnly at the people passing and then to Harry. He raised his brows in a prompt for Harry to look at them.  
  
A woman stumbled forward, bumping into a parishioner in front of her, but no one said a word. It was then that Harry noticed the vacant expressions on the passing faces. "They don't look very happy."  
  
Draco appeared to try to conceal a smirk at this. "Well, they are at church. But aside from their obvious lack of joy in the lord, don't they seem a bit... stiff?"  
  
Harry shook his head, not in disagreement but in his lack of comprehension. Draco picked up Harry's hand and set it on the hand of a passing congregation member. It was cold and the man he'd touched didn't even look at him in question. Harry jerked his hand back and looked at Draco in alarm. "That's not poor circulation, is it?" Draco shook his head. "Inferi?"  
  
Though his face was grim, Draco couldn't help but get in a barb. "Most of them. Yes, mostly _Inferi_ , and they go to Muggle church. I always thought you had to be a bit brain dead to believe in a virgin birth, evidently they're completely dead. Close enough."   
  
Harry slumped against the pew in front of him, shocked by this weird revelation. "You would."  
  
Draco leaned closer to Harry; his whisper tickled his ear. On another day, at another time, it would've been arousing. Right this moment, it was little more than annoying as he was trying to suss out the situation. "Oh come on, Potter. Don't tell me you believe that bilge about a one true god with his son and the holy specter that really, really loves you, but will throw you into hell for having a good toss? Hell, given what we are by nature, we'd be burned at the stake."  
  
"For being gay?"   
  
Pulling back so he could poke his wand out of his pocket, Draco said, "That, too."   
  
Giving a dismal nod, Harry looked down at the gilded lettering of "Holy Bible" and realized that it was true. In spite of the good messages of 'love thy neighbor' and 'thou shall not steal' came a great deal of violence. Granted, there were far fewer stake burnings in recent years, but the eager piousness and hatred was still there. "All right, but these aren't really people anymore, they're Inferi. Are you saying that all of Christian atrocity has been committed by witches and wizards using dead Muggle bodies?"  
  
"That's a bit ambitious, don't you think? No. Alas, Muggles are perfectly capable of cocking up their own belief systems and killing one another sans Wizard intervention," he said as he cast his eyes over the congregation who were being blessed by the priest at the altar, each taking their body and blood of Christ and retreating to their pews noiselessly.  
  
Harry looked around, but as far as he could see, the church looked as bland as the one that his surrogate family on Privet Drive had reluctantly taken him to for holiday services. Just as dead and morose as any church service he'd ever attended. He wondered if they were all secretly filled with Inferi. But no, he'd seen lively people, people he'd known to be alive in those churches. When he came to from his reverie, he noticed that a few of the cow-eyed Inferi were staring at them. "I don't think it's going over well that we didn't take part in their ceremony."  
  
Draco grabbed Harry's hand and dragged him out of the pew and down the aisle. Harry looked back at the Inferi who were slowly turning to follow them. His heart pumping erratically at the threat of being caught, he chased Draco out of the vestibule and into the early morning light.   
  
They whipped around the corner after a half block run and Apparated back to the spot next to Harry's flat. Harry looked wildly around them, they could've been seen using magic, they could've been followed, but it appeared that nothing of the sort had happened. Draco was already racing up the stairs and stood at the top, beckoning Harry to disable the wards to get them to safety.  
  
After following up the stairs, Harry excitedly recited a series of incantations that let them inside. He slammed the door shut and leaned against it. Staring at the ceiling, he thought about what he'd seen. This wasn't the first time that Inferi had been used as an army and there were certainly enough of them to be concerned. Hearing the fridge open and close, he figured Draco was getting some water. He kicked off of the door and then flopped onto his dark brown couch, followed by Draco. Harry pushed his glasses back up his nose and carded his hand through his damp hair.   
  
Draco returned from the kitchen and leaned against the couch. Deathly pale and still panting, he held the open water bottle against his forehead to cool himself. Harry found it curious that Draco spent all his time at dance clubs but somehow was winded from a run up the stairs. There were more pressing matters than Draco's stamina, however. "All right, so it's a church full of Inferi. So the questions now are why and how?" Harry asked.  
  
Taking a long swig from the bottle, Draco looked pensive. "The 'why' isn't something I can answer. Nor is the 'how.' But they're very good questions to ask. I'd like to know myself. That said, I think that the 'how' might have to do with the Eucharist." Draco drained the bottle and set it down. "The ritual itself is common enough. I've been to surrounding churches, there's nothing magical or binding about it. So I figure it must be a potion of some sort. But I don't know. It's happening pretty fast, whatever it is."   
  
Harry picked up the empty and trotted to the kitchen to grab another. He came back and handed the fresh one to Draco. It gave him time to think, plus Draco had gone even paler. Harry hoped the water would help. He petted down Draco's hair as he watched him gulping down the water. "How can there be so many of them in that church, though? There had to be, what, 150 people. They're all just missing? Why isn't anyone alarmed?"  
  
Draco looked up at Harry and patted the spot next to him for him to take a seat, which he did. He finished the bottle of water and Harry set it on the side table. "You noticed the area we were in, right? The clubs around there? That church is in the heart of a gay community, isn't it?"   
  
Harry nodded his assent.   
  
"That mass was practically standing room only. Kind of unusual considering the church is sitting in the middle of what _they would_ call sin central. Curious place for a thriving congregation."   
  
"You said they're Inferi, right? So they wouldn't have much choice." Harry watched Draco's expression, trying to suss out what he was trying to say since he wasn't answering his question directly. "I guess the strangest part of it would be why someone would fill a church with Inferi. What difference would ministering to the soulless make?"  
  
"Exactly. It wouldn't make a difference." Draco nodded at Harry slowly to encourage him, but appeared too tired to do much more.  
  
"Well, all right, so these are all 'former people' still moving, carrying on in their former duties. But don't their families notice that they're zombies? They can't really be themselves, right?" Harry continued to slide his fingers through Draco's hair, splaying it out over the back of the couch as Draco's breathing began to slow.  
  
Draco turned his head, opening his good eye to look at Harry. He did nothing to hide the bitterness in his tone. "When do families ever want you to be yourself? Say you have someone in your family that you consider odd in some way, someone unlike you. Then one day they've started going to church and react in all the ways that everyone else in the world does. Why don't you tell me why is it that the families of those people haven't noticed a change in their loved ones?"  
  
"Unlike you? What? Family doesn't want you to be happy?" It puzzled him what Draco was getting at. Didn't family love and accept you for who you were? Then he thought of the Dursleys. After the realization dawned on him, Harry swallowed and then looked dejectedly into his lap. "Because those people were... gay."  
  
Draco exhaled and closed his eyes again and pressed his lips together.  
  
Harry stilled his hand in Draco's hair. "Their families aren't questioning it, because... because... they're happy that their loved ones are going to church and otherwise... not being homosexuals. But Malfoy, there's so many! How could so many people... wouldn't they be upset that someone they loved just suddenly changed... well... everything in their lives to become _everything they weren't_?" Harry brought his hand back and then slouched against the couch, mimicking Draco's posture.  
  
"Given all you've seen and done, the fact that you still want to believe in people is admirable." Draco sighed and wrapped his arms around himself. "But it will be a hindrance here. This is about as depraved behavior as I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot. Religion seems to do that to people. The wizards and witches running this... they know what they're doing. Appealing to zealots will... well... it can get you pretty far."   
  
Keeping his eyes closed, Harry thought of the ceremony. All of those people, all of those families who turned a blind eye to the changes in their relatives, probably rationalizing that they'd somehow seen the light. He wondered what those conversations were like. Did they testify that God helped them see the error of their ways? The thought made him feel ill.  
  
On needy impulse, Harry pulled Draco to him and rested his head in his lap. "I suppose so." He traced Draco's features tenderly, and congratulated himself at how soothed Draco appeared. Then he heard the light snore.   
  
At times like these, he forgot that Draco was terribly sick. It must've been a big exertion for him. But at least Harry knew what Draco knew so far and that would have to be enough for now. He grabbed the throw blanket from the back of his sofa and unfolded it over Draco. He picked up the remote and flipped the telly on and lowered the volume so as not to wake Draco. [  
  
\--  
  
Harry held Draco's platinum hair from his face as he got sick into the toilet again. Draco's body was clammy and sweat-covered, and his skin was so pale that it was nearly translucent.   
  
"Fuck," Draco announced between gut-wrenching seizures.   
  
Harry wished there was more he could do beyond just sitting there holding his hair back and dampening the back of his neck with a cold, wet washcloth.  
  
"Can I get you anything?" Leaving the towel on the back of Draco's neck, he caressed his fingers up and down Draco's spine.  
  
"I need my potions." He turned his head to eye Harry warily.   
  
"Tell me where they are." Harry's expression was determined. He'd move heaven and earth to get Draco what he needed.  
  
"In my flat."  
  
"Where is that?"  
  
Draco shook his head. "Fidelius protected. You'd never find it. The secret keeper would have to tell you where it is, and if you're going to see Snape, you may as well get fresh potions."  
  
Harry set his jaw. _I don't know where Draco is, indeed_. "Snape's your secret keeper?"  
  
His response was to give Harry an irritated look as if that were the obvious conclusion to what he said and then he became ill again.   
  
As much as Harry didn't want to see Snape again, he'd do it if he had to. He didn't fancy leaving Draco alone like this, however. Dabbing the enchanted cold cloth over Draco's forehead, he sighed as Draco flushed the toilet again. They watched it whisk away the lemon-yellow bile.   
  
"Will you be all right while I go for a few?"  
  
"No."  
  
"I can't get you your potions if I don't leave..." Harry squeezed some of the water from the towel onto Draco's hair and used it to slick his hair back. After a moment's thought, he remembered a rubber band at his desk and returned with it.  
  
"That's going to yank all of my hair out by the root. Don't make me kill you." He lurched threateningly over the porcelain bowl but didn't end up retching. He rested his head on his folded arms and let out a shuddering sigh.   
  
"So you need your potion, but you don't want me to leave. You don't want your hair covered in vomit, but I can't tie it back. Draco..."   
  
"Are you a wizard or not?" Draco fished his wand out of his pocket and cast a charm that kept his hair back from his face.  
  
Harry watched the hair all at once gather into a ponytail and tossed the band into the bin. "Well, my hair isn't that long. I never had a need to know that grooming charm."  
  
"I'd be surprised if you know any grooming charms. Or cleaning charms. Your flat is a mess. You're a mess." This time Draco heaved again, but nothing came out.  
  
Harry counted to ten, reminding himself that Draco was just irritable. "I'm going to go visit Snape."  
  
"No," grumbled Draco. He gagged again and then inhaled to strengthen himself. "I have a..." he looked Harry over again, somewhere between wary and weary, "Portkey." His hand slid into his pocket again and he fished around for a small vial of an evil-looking gritty green potion.   
  
"Why didn't it," Harry gestured with his hand to indicate vanishing.  
  
"It's charmed not to activate until I say a certain word. You can't very well be running about with a loose Portkey in your pocket, or every time you put your hand in your pocket you'd disappear home, wouldn't you? Grab on my waist." He glanced over Harry again a little nervously. Harry wondered if Draco was worried about him seeing his flat.  
  
Wrapping his arms around Draco, he closed his eyes, preparing for the disorienting travel. "All right."  
  
"Scarhead."  
  
Harry looked up. "What?" He was cut short by the spinning sensation of travel and then found himself in a rather sparse, modern fashionable flat.   
  
Draco squirmed out of his arms and was getting ill into an emptied vase, unable to make it to the bathroom in time. Harry took the opportunity to look around Draco's flat. It wasn't what he would've expected given the traditional style of the Malfoy Manor. Instead, it appeared to be a largish, hardwood floored two-bedroom which allowed Draco a separate room for an office. It was minimally furnished with a quaint, squared couch made of leather and interesting v-shaped chairs that looked like a designer's space-aged vision of thrones. The fixtures were brushed steel and appeared handmade and therefore slightly imperfect. There were a few tastefully bold pieces of art on the walls, one of which was signed D. Malfoy. Harry raised his brows and watched the pathetic scene of Draco hanging over the vase.   
  
It appeared that Draco was done for the moment and Harry helped him up. "Bathroom." Draco directed them to his bedroom that was no less the picture of contemporary living, as if out of a glossy idealized furniture design catalog. They staggered into the large bathroom. Draco made for the cabinet and pulled out a series of potions and downed them one-by-one after Harry pulled the stoppers out. He then sat on the closed-lid toilet seat and let his head fall back against the back of it. Immediately the color started to come back into his cheeks.  
  
"Your flat is really nice." Harry took a seat on the side of the tub. It was made to resemble the traditional claw-foot tub, but appeared to stand on stick-like stilts that seemed unlikely to bear much weight.   
  
"Not everyone wants to live in a pigsty, Potty." He smirked, eyes still closed, as he appeared to be thoroughly enjoying not feeling ill anymore.  
  
"The way you were looking at me, I thought maybe your whole protest about my place was projection. I figured your flat would be a wreck." He looked around the lush bathroom. It was full of tropical plants that would enjoy the humidity.  
  
"If that's the measure of your investigative skills, I'm going to have to find someone else to embark on this venture with. Alas, no, Potty." Draco opened one eye to look at Harry. "Your home is disgusting all on its own merits, above and beyond the average. I just wasn't sure I wanted you smelling up my home."   
  
It was time to drop that subject before Draco's snark insulted him. "Why don't you carry spare potions with you?"  
  
"I do. I ran out. I actually didn't anticipate running into you last night, nor staying the day with you." Feeling well enough, Draco sat up again and leaned forward.  
  
"It had been ten days. I never saw you taking any potions."  
  
"Ten days? Really?" Draco looked very tired again. He exhaled and then reached out to touch the glossy leaf of one of his tropical plants. "I lose track sometimes." The admission was sad, lost sounding, but Draco pulled himself together again quickly. "I'll alert you next time I'm taking potions, make a big performance of it. Maybe we could sell tickets for extra income."  
  
"That's not what I mean." Harry was bothered that Draco would lose days like that. He wanted to ask so many questions now, but he wasn't sure if it was fair or appropriate. Not that things like that mattered to him usually. "How sick are you, Draco?"  
  
Pulling on the leaf, Draco yanked it off and then started to slowly tear it into strips, discarding each perfect one as he went. "Sometimes I can't get out of bed. I just summon the potions to me or call Severus to... help."   
  
The name rankled Harry, but it wasn't as if he was around. "You can call me now. What... what's in the vial you use as a Portkey? Shouldn't that be the last reserve of potion for you to feel well enough to come home?" He understood the logic of a Portkey to get home. Obviously Draco was too sick to have Apparated home on his own.   
  
"That is not a medicinal potion. It's a... " he frowned and looked around the room, his eyes seeming in total synch for a moment before they again split focus. "A very extreme sedative. In case I'm really... very stuck and... well, it's just something I've had since my Death Eater days."  
  
"A suicide potion? For... like what they give to spies in case they're caught?"  
  
Draco nodded gravely.  
  
"Oh."  
  
It was a relief when Draco stood and stretched, rubbing his stomach as if nothing had happened. "Well, now that I've purged, it's time to binge again. How about something for dinner?"  
  
Again, Harry felt like little other than a dirty cliché of a bachelor compared to Draco. His kitchen was surprisingly stocked with food, not just condiments and paper plates. After finishing their omelets, which Draco prepared with a series of charms so as not to actually get his hands dirty, Harry noted, they sat back at the chrome and lacquer table. Harry had to ask the question that had been in the back of his mind all this time. He didn't care if it was rude; he had to know. "How did you end up... how were you infected?"  
  
"It wasn't from transfusions, if that's what you're getting at." Draco dabbed his mouth off with the napkin again and then set it to the left of his plate as a crowning gesture to the end of his meal. His cutlery was set in diagonally over the remnants of the food, as signal to a servant that he was finished. Half of the omelet still remained.  
  
"No, you know what I'm getting at." Harry covered his food with the linen napkin completely, as if it were a corpse that needed to hide its shameful deadness from public view.  
  
Draco gave Harry a disapproving look, but said nothing about it. He rubbed his eyes with his fingers, speaking from behind his palms. "Well, you might just say that my lack of knowledge about Muggles bit me on the arse. Father always said that Muggles were filthy, diseased creatures. I just didn't realize how literal that was. Or maybe I did and I just didn't care." His hands moved from his face to make a flippant motion. It didn't matter now what he thought of Muggles. He would die either way.   
  
After a long silence, where Harry expected Draco to go on, he sat up, rearranging his plate with the cutlery like Draco's and the linen folded properly. "All right, so you just didn't know. That doesn't explain why you were... with Muggles."  
  
Touching his lips, Draco watched Harry rearranging his plate, but didn't appear to be particularly impressed with the gesture. "I suppose I could set out some reasons why I think I did it. I can't say that I spent a lot of time plotting my actions after witnessing father getting the Kiss. Maybe it was rebellion from the life I'd been in. Maybe it was just easier to bed people who didn't know me, after all, who would want to shag a nefarious traitor? No, that's not it. Plenty of people wanted to shag me or talk to me or get my story to write for the paper or a novel or... whatever. I just wanted to escape. Millicent had just had Ursius and he was screaming all of the time. It was... an escape."  
  
"Not such a great escape if you end up dead from it."   
  
"Ironic, no? Trapped by my own escape. Such is life." Draco pulled his wand to move the dishes to the sink where they washed themselves and found their places in the shelves. Harry wasn't sure he'd seen anyone use magic as much as Draco Malfoy did. It was either brilliance or gluttony. That seemed to sum up Draco.  
  
Harry leaned in on the table, resting his chin on his hand as he watched every expression on Draco's face. They seemed to flit between pain and moments of amusement. "Do you know who infected you?"  
  
Draco nodded. "I do."  
  
"Even after so many bathroom trysts?"  
  
The sharp look that comment received made Harry blush. "You don't know how many there were, or how much time I've ever spent in that bathroom, do you? You're making a lot of assumptions. But you always did jump to conclusions based on what little you've seen."  
  
Harry's hand dropped from under his chin to the table. His tone was stern. "I could say the same about you. You don't know what I'm thinking. I'm asking. Besides, it's not as if you've worked to give me loads of information."   
  
"You're assuming that I just slept with whomever I met."  
  
"Just last night I pulled you off of... what was that guy's name?"  
  
"I've no idea."  
  
"That's the point, Draco. You didn't even know that guy's name! You pulled _me_ into the bathroom immediately..."  
  
Draco's expression was annoyed, but beyond that, unreadable. "Well, draw whatever conclusions you want. I'm not going to argue with you about it. You can accept that I know who infected me or don't. It's immaterial what you think."  
  
Those words struck Harry hard, and his chest felt tight. Draco didn't care what he thought? He swallowed hard and resisted the urge to dump the table on him. He bit his bottom lip to restrain himself. Tightly, he asked, "So what happened to that bloke? Did you top him off?"  
  
Sitting back against the hard chair, Draco shook his head. "He was already topped off when I found him. I'll admit the idea had its appeal at the time. But no, he was dead when I found him. Well, mostly dead."  
  
Harry's brows rose. "Mostly dead?"  
  
" _Let's just say he found god_."


	5. Chapter 5

"All right, Potter. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here." Draco clapped his hands at Harry after returning from the shower to find Harry still lazing in his bed. His hair fell in wet tendrils around his head and he wore an almost painfully bleached white robe.  
  
The universal bar brush off would've been funnier to Harry were he not so torn about leaving someone as unwell as Draco was alone. "I'm comfortable. Besides, I can hang around and make you breakfast."  
  
"Harry Potter is part house-elf, hmm? I heard your parents got up to some kinky antics, but I didn't think shagging bestial help was amongst their peccadilloes. You learn something new every day." Draco grabbed his comforter and yanked it back revealing Harry's naked body. After a quick leer of appreciation, Draco started pulling at the bottom sheet to force Harry off of the mattress.  
  
"Hey! And no I'm not! Don't talk about my parents that way and... Hey!" Finding himself spilling towards the edge. "Let me stay to take care of you."  
  
"Oh Potter." Dropping the sheets, Draco folded his arms. "What did I ever do without you to take care of me? I couldn't possibly deal with another day without someone to baby sit me."   
  
Harry winced at the caustic tone. "Is it such a crime that I care?"  
  
The stricken look on Draco's face flickered to something unreadable. He crawled up the bed next to Harry and flopped next to him. Wrapping his arms around Harry, he rested his clammy cheek and cold hair on his shoulder. "I just have some things to do today."  
  
"You should rest. I'll do them for you." Harry didn't think the wet hair was a good idea, so he plucked his wand from the nightstand and cast a drying charm on it.   
  
Draco tilted his head up and eyed Harry. For a moment, Harry thought he might say something rude about his spell casting. "All right, you caught me. I don't have errands. It's just... I'm rather used to having a lot of time to myself." He kissed Harry's cheek. "I'm just going to putter around and then sleep. You won't be missing much, I promise."  
  
Though he couldn't help but feel a bit rejected, he wasn't going to trespass. Through an exhale, he said, "Fine."   
  
Harry started to push up off of the bed, but Draco held him in place and pressed his lips to his. They parted to allow a kiss, shortened by Draco pulling away and wrinkling his nose. "Morning breath."  
  
"I wasn't the fool that kissed someone who just woke up." Harry grinned and rolled out of the bed. Draco slapped his arse. "Shower before you go, Potter. I won't have you leaving my flat stinking like your breath."  
  
Wiggling his arse at Draco, Harry flipped back his shaggy black hair and gave Draco a look as he headed to the bathroom. Catching the hint, Draco followed.  
  
\--  
  
Harry lay in his bed after casting cleansing charms around his flat, he thought about the conversation he'd had with Draco that kept them both up late into the night about why the Wizarding world wasn't working on a cure for AIDS. The way Draco saw it, Wizards weren't so much against homosexuals as they were caught up in a dilemma of ethics when it came to sharing the cure with the world. _"Potter, should they stumble upon a cure, how would they rationalize leaving millions of Muggles to die? Or alternately, how would they put the cure out into the Muggle world without revealing the magical world_? Ignoring the problem wouldn't make it go away either.  
  
  
He looked around his room that was neatened up with the rationale that it would look at least presentable should Draco happen by. In spite of all of the cleaning he might do, it would never achieve the minimalist look of Draco's flat. His furniture was shabby and torn from his constant moving and mismatched to boot. Much of it had come from the Burrow and he was far too sentimentally attached to replace it.  
  
None of this would be an issue if he knew how to get back to Draco's flat. But he didn't know where it was. Only one other person did.  
  
 _Snape. Snape is Draco's secret keeper_. Harry could feel himself growing jealous of the man. He still hadn't forgiven for killing Dumbledore-- no matter what anyone said about it being pre-arranged. Certainly Albus Dumbledore hadn't intended for Harry and Draco to witness his death, so as far as he was concerned, Snape's story didn't hold. His mind drifted to Draco that night. How his wand had just begun to waver just before the others crashed in.   
  
There were so many things he wanted to ask Draco, but there was so much going on now-- Nott, for example. Nott was dead; there was no way around that. While Voldemort had managed to bring himself back, it was at a great cost and he was a dark lord. Theodore Nott was not that powerful. Whoever it was, Tonks was spending time with him. It was time for a chat with his ex-partner.   
  
\--  
  
The lunch crowd at the local deli on the Muggle side of the Ministry had thinned out. It was a fairly indiscreet place to meet, but as of yet, Harry didn't think he had anything to hide. Now that she was here and he was asking questions, he regretted not choosing somewhere more private.   
  
"No, it's fine Harry." Tonks paled, making the contrast between her plaited, black hair even more dramatic. "I was just under the impression that this would be a social visit." Why she'd think that, Harry couldn't fathom. Harry wasn't really the sort who called on people for no purpose. Maybe he did allow Tonks to drag him to a pub one night after he'd retired from the Ministry, but that now seemed so long ago. "Have you been sleeping?"  
  
"No, not really. But don't change the subject, why are you meeting with Nott?" Harry poked at the sandwich he was served. Even if he weren't too distressed to eat, the wilted lettuce wasn't particularly appealing. He glanced to the sandwich makers, squinting at them. But they appeared alive enough. They just didn't care about their jobs. Fair enough.   
  
"That's confidential information, Harry. Even if I were inclined to share that information... and may I ask, how did you find out I was meeting with him at all?" She stabbed at her salad, but appeared as interested in the crumpled lettuce was Harry was in his food.  
  
"I saw you in the club with him. He's a fugitive, isn't he? Missing?"  
  
"Technically, yes. Well, no longer classified as missing, obviously. He has information on a disturbing situation, so I'm instructed not to bring him in until we get some resolution." Scraping her fork on the side of the bowl, she went after the croutons and tomatoes, which appeared well enough.   
  
Harry pulled at the crust of bread from his sandwich. "So what's the deal with him? Bargaining for less time in Azkaban?"  
  
"Something like that. Look, Harry, I can't get into what's going on there. You're no longer an Auror. Maybe if you were to take your job back..." Her hopeful expression was poorly concealed.  
  
"No. I'm not going back. I've done my bit for saving the Ministry's arse. My involvement in this will be on my own, but you could get me information." He watched her recoil, but kept his body language indifferent.  
  
"I don't think that it's wise for you to get involved, we have our guy on the inside, and really, the situation is rather complex. I don't think that you really know enough about it to get involved. Nott's involvement is really the least of it. It's... pretty big."  
  
"Big like a church full of Inferi?" Deciding that this would be a good time to appear casual, Harry took a big bite from his sandwich, watching Tonks peripherally to observe her reaction.  
  
Tonks sputtered, dropping her fork into her salad. "How long have you been watching me?"  
  
"I only saw you that one night."  
  
"Then how do you know about..."  
  
Harry set the sandwich down again and flicked the crumbs from his fingers. "Let's just say that I have my own person on the inside."  
  
Staring at Harry for a long, distrustful moment, she picked her fork back up again. "You don't trust me to tell me who that is?"  
  
"You didn't trust me to tell me what was going on."  
  
"Harry, that's different. I could lose my job."  
  
"You look out for the Ministry, but it doesn't look out for you. You know that, Tonks. Why wouldn't you trust me above them?"  
  
She gestured with her fork as if it would prompt words to come out and then she dropped it again. "All right. You caught me. I just didn't know why you were asking about Nott and thought perhaps you were going to go on a vendetta kill since we know he was last seen where Hermione was...."  
  
" _Murdered_. You can say it, Tonks. She was murdered. By Voldemort." At times like these, Harry couldn't help but want to make others feel uncomfortable. It seemed to take the edge off of his resentment.   
  
"Right. Well, you've always seemed a little odd about when Nott's name came up. I just didn't want you to go after him. We need him right now to sort out what's going on with this church and how wizards are involved. But look, if you have any information about that, I'm the lead Auror on that investigation, so you can tell me..."  
  
"I'll tell you, if you tell me. Maybe with both of our contacts we can get this done sooner." Tonks took a considered bite of her salad. As long as she'd been staring at it, Harry wondered how she would even _want_ to put a brown piece of lettuce in her mouth.   
  
Harry shook his head. "No, I'm not giving up my contact. I've seen far too many people mistreated by the Ministry."  
  
Tonks sighed after another long silence. "I'll have to think about it. I could use the help, to be honest. A huge case like this makes me really miss having you around."  
  
"A huge case like this makes me miss Ministry resources. I think we have a lot to offer one another." Harry grinned, knowing that with Tonks's admission, she was going to give in.   
  
"Perhaps." She grinned back at him. By the time they finally left the deli, Tonks had promised to send over the files on what she had. But after hearing what she had to say about it, it didn't sound like she knew much more than he did. Harry kept to himself that Nott had to be an imposter, but asked that she tell him about all of their meetings and to save those memories for him to go over through the Pensieve later. He didn't know what the imposter of Nott was playing at, but he would find out, and soon.  
  
\--  
  
As much as Harry wanted to see Draco again, he didn't know where he lived. Again he cursed the Fidelius as he crossed over to Wizarding London and then Apparated to his flat. He was just about to set his wand into his pocket when he heard the fluttering of wings. Recognising the bird as a breed common to the ones Hogwarts used, he looked down at the outstretched leg. The scroll was affixed with an official Hogwarts seal and a headmaster's seal. Harry smacked his lips in distaste, but still fished some treats out of a drawer and took the message. He felt the wave of magic pass over him, making sure he was whom the message was for.   
  
Harry tried to steady himself. Maybe Snape was just being overcautious. It couldn't possibly be what he hoped it was. Cracking the seal, Harry unrolled the paper and stared down at the scrawl that was familiar from his sixth year potions book. He scanned the missive, phrases like, "against my better judgment" and "take care of him" popped out as they were underlined before he reached what he'd hoped he'd find; Draco's address.  
  
\--  
  
Remnants of their takeaway dinner lay in open paper boxes along the coffee table. Though it very nearly had been a fight in itself to get Draco to abandon the table and proper china to eat out of the disposable containers of tandoori and vindaloo chicken, now that Draco was full and sloshy with a spicy Spanish red wine, he seemed quite at home amongst the mess. "Whatever happened with you and the Weaslette, anyway?"  
  
Harry crossed his arms. "I assume you mean Ginny?"  
  
"Were there other 'ettes in that family? I'll admit that the Weasel King was a bit of a girl, but yes, I meant _Ginny_."  
  
"Well, it was the same old story. Boy meets girl, girl has a crush on the boy for a few years. Boy sees girl with someone else gets jealous, wants to have her for himself."  
  
Draco nodded.  
  
"So boy thinks about girl and finally just kisses her and they date, but ultimately the boy decides that his mission in life was more important, so he leaves to do his duty and comes back to find the girl with Dean Thomas."  
  
"Oh, right. _Those_ stories always end with _Dean Thomas_." Draco looked away from Harry's irked glare.  
  
"ANYWAY, it was really all right, as it turned out I didn't so much like Ginny Weasley so much as the Weasleys in general." He swatted at Draco, whose shoulders were now shaking whilst his eyes watered.  
  
"That's all right. I could never tell them apart either."  
  
That comment won Draco a hard punch in the arm. "I'm not going to tell you this if you're not going to be serious!"  
  
Draco rubbed the spot on his arm and pouted. "Ooh, you want me to be your godfather? My, my, you ARE kinky, Potty!" There had to be at least one Sirius joke.  
  
"You are truly demented."  
  
Draco sat up, still chuckling, but it didn't stop his sitting up and throwing his head back in a proud preen. "I do try."  
  
"Do you want to hear the rest of it?"  
  
"There's more beyond Dean Thomas? Because I'll listen to stories about Dean, but don't throw in any tales of the spotted dick." He sucked his cheeks in and smirked.  
  
Harry squirmed.  
  
"You... WHORE!" Draco cackled.  
  
"Well, Hermione had just died... and Ron was really lonely..."  
  
Draco gaped, his lips upturned as much as they could. "I'm too sober to hear the rest of this!" He hopped up to grab another bottle of wine and popped it open with a quick enchantment and refilled their glasses. "Go on!"  
  
Harry's arms tightened around him. "No."  
  
"Oh, come ON! I always thought you two were shagging. Ever since fourth year. _Most important person to you_ , and all. Thought Krum's choice was a bit demented..."  
  
"Don't start in on Hermione!" Harry leaned forward and snatched up his full goblet and took a slow sip, wincing at the bitterness of Draco's choices. Harry's had been mellower, this conflicted with their meal.   
  
"Don't care for cabs?"  
  
Harry made a face and set it back down.  
  
Draco shrugged and sipped his wine. "No, it's not the relative attractiveness of Granger. Although... she was..." catching the warning look from Harry, he stopped. "It was just that hadn't he _just_ met her? How needy is that? At least you'd known Ron for a few years."  
  
"We weren't shagging." Harry glared at the glass of wine, willing it to be something more tolerable for him to drink. Giving up on having the ability to turn wine into water by will, he snatched it up again and drank it down in one big gulp. "Then."  
  
"What happened to Weasley, anyway? I don't recall him dying in any of the battles." Draco swished the wine in his glass.  
  
"He took his own life."  
  
Draco froze, and then looked up at Harry. "That's not funny."  
  
"Do I look amused?" He poured himself another glass of the foul liquid and shot it back.  
  
"No. No way would Weasley top himself. No." Draco shook his head as if sheer will would make that go away. He finished his glass of wine and poured another, his hand shaking so that the wine sloshed over the rim of the glass. He paused and gave Harry a needy look. Setting the wine down, Draco nestled onto the couch next to Harry, sliding his arms around him as if he needed consoling.   
  
Harry held Draco back. In spite of how it may have come, he was pleased with the contact. "He just... never got over her. Not really. We had our... and then he ended it. He just wasn't gay. Then he dated a bit and... it just... I couldn't.... He said that he'd mucked up our friendship with sleeping together and he just couldn't... go on."  
  
"It was a war, Harry. A lot of people passed on, and a lot of people lost loved ones. A lot of people couldn't cope with that." He slid his hand to Harry's stomach and gently rubbed.   
  
"He was my friend. I wasn't... there how he needed me. I... "  
  
Draco fell silent. His hand drifted down over the front of Harry's trousers.  
  
"Don't."   
  
He continued to fondle him.  
  
"Stop it."  
  
Reaching for the zip, Draco almost had it down when Harry grabbed his wrist to yank his hand away.  
  
"I SAID STOP IT!"  
  
"Sorry," whispered Draco as he pulled his hand back and massaged it.  
  
Harry's eyes widened. "What?"  
  
"I'm sorry. Don't get stroppy; I just thought you seemed tense." He sulked.  
  
"Did you just _apologise_ to me?" Harry didn't even bother containing his shock.  
  
Draco shrugged.  
  
"Draco Malfoy just apologised." Shaking his head, Harry couldn't help but grin in spite of himself.   
  
Sulking, Draco asked, "Going to take out an ad in the _Daily Prophet_?"   
  
"No, it's just that in all of the years I've known you, you never apologized for anything."  
  
Draco looked Harry dead in the eye, both eyes suddenly able to concentrate in one direction. "You never really knew me."  
  
At first Harry blinked, meeting Draco's gaze until the lazy eye drifted and Draco eventually looked away. It was true; he'd never known Draco Malfoy, not really. He'd stalked him, he'd wanted to help him, at least at a couple of points, but it wasn't until recently that they'd started actually talking. Even after all of the sex they'd had, they didn't know each other. "You didn't let me."  
  
"You're the one who turned me down." With that, Draco stood up and stretched. Harry noticed how his shirt rode up, exposing his pale, sunken abdomen. His face was incredibly sad, eyes closed as he turned away, looking towards the bedroom.   
  
Harry wondered now how deeply that had affected Draco. He'd always written him off as frivolous and status-seeking. That's who he was back then, and he'd never made particular bones about it. He was always on about his father's control at the Ministry, always speaking about how much better he was, how much better his family was. Harry didn't see how he could've known. "I'm not turning you down now."  
  
Draco looked over his shoulder with a wry grin. "Didn't you just?"  
  
"Sorry, I don't move from painful memories to being tossed off that fast." Harry carded his hand through his hair and then picked the bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon up from the table, lamenting its emptiness in spite of how much he disliked it. At this point, he wouldn't mind being a bit tipsier. He set it back down and looked up at Draco.  
  
"You always were a bit slow. Do you want me to open another bottle?"  
  
"I didn't like it to start with." Harry stood and yawned. "I just thought it might mellow me out a little."  
  
Turning, Draco took Harry's hand and flashed a devilish smirk. "You know, you interrupted me in the middle of something that would've mellowed you out quite a bit."  
  
Harry had to press his lips together to keep from grinning at Draco's constant lasciviousness. It felt nice to be desired so much, it had always been the other way around. He allowed Draco to pull him closer, but fussed, "You were molesting me while I was upset."  
  
"You're just going to have to forgive me for that. I must've missed 'comforting class.' Nothing cheers me up quite like a good blow job." He pulled Harry by the hand to the open bedroom, backing up slowly till they reached the bed.  
  
"You're not going to give up, are you?" Harry asked, raising his arms as Draco pulled his shirt off over his head and tossed it aside.  
  
Draco grinned as he started on Harry's trousers. "I'm very determined."  
  
"Funny, I was thinking you were a horny little bugger." Harry whimpered as Draco caressed him through the fabric of his briefs. Jutting his hips forward, he found his will to banter draining. Draco was on his knees before him, fingers curling around the elastic as he pulled his trousers and briefs down. The head of his prick brushed against Draco's ear, stiffening at the tickle of his hair that so casually drifted over as Draco worked Harry's shoes off.   
  
Harry stepped out of his pants and Draco pushed them aside. He looked up at Harry, his fingers delicately surrounded Harry's cock, stroking it in a rhythm dictated by his speech. "I am a horny little bugger. So are you, aren't you?"  
  
Watching as his prick enlarged under Draco's caress, he felt a blush curling from his neck at being called out like that. He didn't have an answer, but instead reached down to stroke Draco's fine hair. His fingers slid along the slight scar beside his lazy eye.   
  
Draco closed his eyes and dropped his jaw, sliding the tip of his tongue along the slit of Harry's prick, swirling it slowly down over the head and further down the shaft, teasing the foreskin back further. Harry's fingers tightened in his hair, halting Draco's progress, keeping him concentrated on just the head. He watched his tongue flicking over the tip, pale angelic face concentrated on its task. The release of his pre-ejaculate, which stuck in a clear string to Draco's tongue and lips, made Harry whimper. It was clear and sticky, mixing with saliva from Draco's mouth, making a mess of his plush lips and down his chin. Leaning in further in spite of the hold Harry had on his hair, Draco began to suck him in earnest. His hand pumped at the base of Harry's cock, making up the difference.   
  
Harry continued to watch the movement; Draco's sucked in lips, the bright glistening of wetness, the determined expression on the pale face. His breathing increased rapidly as he forced himself to watch Draco's working mouth, feeling the warm, spongy ridges, the flickering tongue, the hard pull of suction; it didn't take long. The shudder warmed his stomach and pulsed lower, finally forcing him to expel into Draco's mouth with little other than a loud gasp and hard tug of his hair as warning.   
  
Releasing Draco's hair, he watched him lap at the corners of his mouth like a cat before smearing off the remnants of saliva and come from around his mouth. Then he licked his lips again and looked up at Harry as he reached to the nightstand for his condoms. Harry looked at the nightstand and then down at Draco. "No, I wantâ€¦ I want you."  
  
"And you'll get me, but yes, we're using these," Draco said as he pulled the drawer open and began fishing for a condom.  
  
Harry knelt down so that he could get his face into Draco's, to catch his eye. "No. I meanâ€¦ I want you toâ€¦ you know."   
  
He watched Draco's face express his comprehension. Draco looked dumbly at the condom in his hand and then back at Harry. "Iâ€¦ are you sureâ€¦ I haven't since I wasâ€¦ not without a..." he waved the condom by flexing his fingers, "I know it's safe with magic butâ€¦"  
  
Harry nodded to him and pushed the condom from Draco's hand. "I know the proper charms. You haven'tâ€¦ "  
  
"Topped? No. Mugglesâ€¦ andâ€¦ wellâ€¦ those rubber things can tear. I haven'tâ€¦ popped my murder cherry yet, and I didn't want to start this way." Draco had paled a bit and he looked a bit shaken. His hand was still in the position of holding a condom, although it was gone.   
  
Deciding that Draco needed goading, Harry peeled off his shirt and then got into the bed, crouching on all fours. He opened his legs and looked back over his shoulder, his shaggy hair falling in his face over his crooked glasses.   
  
Draco stood, looking uncertain. He peered around the room as if someone was going to stop him, but then rested his hands on Harry's hips and rolled him down onto his side. "No, not like that. I don't want-- I want it to be-- just not like that." He pulled his clothing off, tossing it into the hamper next to the bathroom door before sliding into his bed, facing Harry.   
  
"Are you proposing to make love to me?" Harry grinned as Draco rolled his eyes and wiggled closer. " _Accio_ wand." It was one of many spells Aurors needed to know how to do without a wand, and the most practical. He pressed his wand to Draco's prick between them, giving the slit a quick tease with the tip of it, not at all surprised when Draco gave his cheek a play slap. He murmured the incantations and then reached over Draco to set his wand on the nightstand. One of the series of spells had lubricated Draco's cock and Harry stroked it, staring into his eyes. "I haven'tâ€¦ done it this way sinceâ€¦ soâ€¦ gently."  
  
"Can weâ€¦ " Draco rolled his eyes and leaned in to kiss Harry, tonguing his lips, pressing against them with surprising deftness. It was unlike their eager kissing before; this was a tender press of lips, slip of tongue, and the feel of sweat-cooled bodies clinging to one another.   
  
Harry shifted higher on the bed as he directed Draco's prick against him. This position was awkward, and for a moment he thought it wouldn't work. Draco had the same idea, evidently as he rolled over on top of Harry and scattered kisses over his face. In one swift shift of hips, Harry felt very full, the pain always the first surprise to penetration, but relaxing as Draco smoothly slid back and in again. He smiled up at Draco and Draco rolled his eyes and grinned back down at him, lowering his face to kiss his forehead, the spot where his scar once was, the spot that at one time, few dared to touch.   
  
He decided he was far too old to get aroused again from this, although he was half stiff when he felt Draco's body start to shudder. He held him tightly whispering how beautiful he was, because this was the only time he could say something like that to Draco without being swatted.   
  
Draco inhaled sharply and his face screwed up. Harry brought both hands up to his face, caressing it as Draco's body clenched, moved deeper into him again and then finally gave out. His sweaty head pressed against Harry's chest, Draco murmured something unintelligible and then gave out.   
  
Harry blew cool air over his forehead. He pushed back the white-blonde hair gone yellow with matting to his forehead. Draco's eyes flickered open and he smiled weakly. "You wore me out."  
  
"I see that." Harry grinned and reached for the covers and pulled them up over them. Draco turned his head to the side and closed his eyes again. When Draco's breath had deepened and evened out and Harry was sure he was asleep, he whispered, "I could get used to this."


	6. Chapter 6

Harry was sated and still feeling happily sore. Draco lay across Harry's chest dozing on and off. Draco kissed Harry's sternum and trotted off to the bathroom. Leaving the door open, Harry watched him piss, take his potions, brush his teeth and wash his face. He turned and looked expectantly at Harry, who realized Draco was expecting him to clean up. Rolling gingerly out of bed, Harry followed into the loo.  
  
Draco handed Harry a spare toothbrush after pulling it from its package. Harry resisted the urge to ask if Draco had a stockpile of them for his "visitors." No, of course he didn't. He was spying; he wouldn't show people where he lived. Still, he thought of the man in the club bathroom, how Draco looked so smugly satisfied as a stranger pounded him.   
  
As Harry brushed his teeth, he watched Draco through the mirror changing the sheets. Though he swung his wand sharply, Draco's shoulders sagged. Harry rinsed his mouth and splashed his face quickly in the hopes of helping, however by the time he'd finished, it was done and Draco was leaning against the doorframe watching him.  
  
Toweling off, Harry smiled at Draco. It occurred to him that he really didn't know much about Draco in his recent years-- even less so about his personal life. "Draco... How did you... when did you..." Harry looked at Draco helplessly.  
  
He gave Harry a puzzled look, "...last have the carpets cleaned? Eat for breakfast?"  
  
"Know that you were gay?" Harry finished, batting at Draco's head with the towel. He tossed the towel back onto the sink and then followed Draco into the bedroom.   
  
"What, six years of unresolved sexual tension between us in school and I'd have thought even _you_ would've sussed it out." Draco flopped into the bed, lying on his back.   
  
Harry crawled in next to him, "Unresolved _what_?   
  
"Never mind." Draco shook his head and rolled over onto his side to grin at Harry. "I suppose some part of me always knew. Don't look down, that's not what I mean." He caught Harry's chin with his curled index finger to keep Harry from looking at the 'part' that he probably thought Draco meant.   
  
Harry blushed. "What do you mean, then?"  
  
"I guess I just was never that attracted to girls. It's not that I find them gross or disgusting. I can see what's attractive about them and all. I just... it's just different, I guess." Draco dropped his hand from Harry's chin and let it lie on the sky blue sheets of impossible thread count.   
  
"What about Pansy?" Harry shook his shaggy black hair back, but kept his eyes on Draco. Without his glasses, Draco's face was nearly all that was in focus.   
  
"Parkinson? That was unfortunate for both of us, I guess. She was a bit self-involved, though. I suppose that I was flashier about it, but she was quite possibly the most self-involved person I've ever met." Exhaling, Draco flopped against the pillow, resigning himself to an unpleasant reverie.   
  
Harry mimicked the action, settling in against his pillow, but clearly interested to hear more of this. "How do you mean?"  
  
"Well, don't get it into your head that she was so awful that it made me gay, because that's just ignorant. She was just a twat." Draco's gestures were terse-- the memories touching some part of him that was still quite hurt and bothered.  
  
"So she didn't make you gay..."  
  
"No. But everything always became about her, somehow. It didn't really matter how I was feeling or what was going on in my life. She'd go on and tell me to talk about myself or my life, but whenever I did... it's like when my father was sent to Azkaban... she started worrying that _her father_ would end up there and...." Draco stopped and shot a look to Harry.   
  
Harry hoped that the passage of time had put things into perspective for Draco regarding his father's imprisonment. Draco had changed so much from that boy flaunting his father's name even from fifth to sixth year that it was possible that he realized it wasn't Harry's doing. The man was breaking the law. The long pause was distressing, but Draco didn't appear angry. Harry decided to try to prod the conversation along. "You still haven't answered when you knew you were gay."  
  
"I told you that I always knew." Draco kicked his knee against Harry's bare thigh.  
  
"But who were you with? Who was your first?" He trapped Draco's knee between his legs and smirked at the aborted attempt to wrest his leg back, enjoying their entanglement.  
  
Draco wrinkled his nose and gave Harry a look. "My first time was with Snape."  
  
Harry thought that was nearly as foul as a Hagrid, Flitwick and Filch threesome.  
  
"Don't give me that look. I was 16. We were on the run. I pretty much already owed him my life and really, without my father there to shield me... I needed him; much more than he needed me." Draco's gaze dropped from Harry's.  
  
"Oh, so it was an arrangement?" Harry pulled Draco tighter.  
  
"Not... exactly. There were feelings. Just... it was really complicated. We both got what we needed from it." Hiding his face in Harry's neck, Draco closed his eyes.  
  
"Romantic." Harry pressed kisses over the bits of skin he could reach without moving Draco.  
  
"Anyway, I have no idea why Snape had killed Dumbledore. He was more than happy to allow me to delude myself that he did it for me."  
  
"Really?" Harry froze. It didn't sit right with him even still that Snape had done that. With an agreement than could later not be proven or refuted? He didn't buy it. "What did he say to you?"  
  
"Oh, Snape said that the old man was a fool who believed too much in the good of people. That Snape was evil, bad as they came, blah, blah, blah. I bought it, too-- every word of it."   
  
Harry slid his fingers through Draco's flaxen hair, watching the pale strands fall through. "You think he was lying? That there was an arrangement?"  
  
Draco's expression turned pensive, his lips pressed together and he shrank from Harry's contact. "That's what the Ministry says, right?"   
  
What the Ministry said wasn't exactly an endorsement in Harry's estimation, but Draco looked uncomfortable, so he changed the subject. "Ron was how I knew."   
  
"How you knew what?"  
  
"That I was gay. He was my first real crush. As you pointed out earlier, he was the most important person to me. I didn't really think about it that much at the time. I just figured I was closer to him than Hermione. We both loved Quidditch -- we were... best friends. But as you said, 16 and on the run..." Harry shook his head at Draco's lascivious look. "No."  
  
"Granger wouldn't let you?" Draco grinned.  
  
"I didn't ask. I had Horcruxes to deal with. I didn't need to be running about shagging. Some of us had some restraint." Harry tilted his chin up to appear dignified.  
  
"Hah! She shot you down!"  
  
"Shut up! I really didn't ask!" Harry grabbed his pillow and smacked Draco's head. "You're horrible!"  
  
His hair staticky from the friction of the pillow, Draco sat up on his elbow in grinning obliviousness to the pale strands standing up from his head. Harry barely concealed his giggle. Leaning in, Draco kissed Harry gently, teasing their bottom lips together. His hand caressed his cheek softly until he broke their connection. "Incorrigible is the word you were looking for."  
  
Patting down Draco's wild mane, he gazed at him. "I thought after Hermione died and Ron and I started... I really thought it would work. We were such good friends... and then..."  
  
"I know this is going to sound _incorrigible_ , because I'm not happy that he's dead or how that came about," Draco gazed at Harry, "But I'm glad it didn't work out, or you..."  
  
"Wouldn't be here," Harry finished, rolling onto his back. He pulled Draco with him, settling his blond head against his chest.  
  
"I'm disturbed we're finishing each other's sentences." Draco wrapped one arm around Harry's bare torso as he settled against him.  
  
Closing his eyes, Harry smiled. "I'm not disturbed. Not disturbed in the least."  
  
\--  
  
Harry awoke from yet another nightmare. Knowing he wasn't likely to get back to sleep again, he carefully disentangled himself from Draco and headed towards the door. He gave a quick glance over his shoulder at Draco. He still looked so frail and helpless. He had no idea where his strength came from sometimes. Then there were times like this, when Draco was quiet and looked so much like a child Harry wanted to wrap him up and hold him. He started to crawl back into bed, but he remembered that he really needed to send a quick message to Tonks to ask where she was in getting files together from the Ministry. It was a not-so-subtle way to show how anxious he was to see what she'd collected.  
  
He sat down at Draco's desk and tapped the brushed steel lamp to turn it on. He was surprised that Draco had a computer. Of course, computers often came with the Internet and the Internet had porn... but so did the Wizard's Wireless. Out of curiosity, he pushed the power button to see what Draco had on his computer. It didn't start. Harry tried it again, and then punched the on button of the monitor. Both dead. He checked the back of the computer and smirked. No cords. "Expensive paper weight," he murmured.   
  
Scanning the top of the desk, his eyes fixed on a small frame with a moving figure in it. He didn't have his glasses on, so he had to pick it up to see it clearly. Ursius. Harry couldn't help but smile at the toddler's antics. The picture wasn't imbued with sound, but he could see the boy's lips moving. "Watch me, daddy!" Ursius did a cartwheel in the grass near what appeared to be one of the rose gardens at the Malfoy Manor. Then he started running towards the frame with his arms out, mouthing, "I love you!" It was the only picture of a person in Draco's entire flat. Harry set it back down and watched it run a few more times.   
  
Pulling open the middle drawer, he found some quills and ink. The next drawer he opened had little other than an odd assortment of wands, empty potions bottles, paper clips and other random odds and ends. He tried the file drawer next, sometimes people kept parchment in the front file.   
  
He read the file names, "Burial" and "My Estate." It was Draco Malfoy's end of life, all meticulously filed and labeled and color-coded. Obsessive-compulsive arrangements of where he was to be buried after he'd died. Along with it were his test results from St. Mungo's in the back. Harry reached for them only to halt at Draco's soft drawl. "Potter, you really should be asking yourself whether that's your business or not, shouldn't you?"  
  
Harry jumped and turned around to see Draco shadowed in the doorway, smoothing his hair down. He knew he looked as guilty as he felt. "I... " but what kind of excuse could he give? "I'm sorry. It's just... you planned your burial?"  
  
Draco nodded. "Why not? I know I'm going to die soon. Whether it's this disease or the spying. Why make it hard on my wife and child?" he asked, his teeth glowed in the blue-light of early morning. He crossed to the desk and pushed the drawer shut.   
  
"Soon?" asked Harry, leaving his hand on his knee as he looked up at Draco, only now seeing where glamours were wearing off and sores were starting to show. "Oh, Draco."  
  
"Soon is a relative term. Sometimes hours feel like weeks and weeks feel like minutes. I don't really know. But then again, you don't either. At least I've had time to set priorities and let people close to me know that they're important. I just wish..." he sighed and sat on the edge of the desk to look down at Harry.  
  
"That you weren't dying?" Harry reached up to set his hand on Draco's naked thigh, amused that the man had no shame about his nudity. Then again, it was his flat.   
  
"Obtuse point. Of course I wish I hadn't contracted this. I would be dying either way, though. We all are, aren't we? No. I just wish it weren't so hard on the people close to me. They don't know what to say to me. I don't know what to say to them. I feel like I've failed them." He set his hand on Harry's and squeezed it. "I'm letting people down because I can't _get better_."  
  
"No one expects you to heal yourself any more than you expect us to heal you." Harry reached up and slid his fingers over the sharp protrusion of Draco's cheekbone. He was so gaunt now compared to during school-- more noticeably now that his countenance was so morose.  
  
"That's not the point." Draco slapped Harry's hand away. "I want to be there for when Ursius goes to Hogwarts. I want to be there when he grows up. I probably won't. I wanted to someday buy my _own house_ , make it a real home. Maybe... have a real live in lover and a long-term commitment. I can't do that now."  
  
"With me?" Harry tried not to look hopeful and he turned away when Draco's expression turned cruel. Stupid question.  
  
"You came to mind." Draco's hand floated gently against Harry's cheek. It was cold.   
  
Harry pressed it to his neck trying to warm it. "Really?"  
  
"Yes. Then I remembered what awful blowjobs you give." He smirked at Harry's annoyed look.  
  
"I'm not as experienced as you, I'm sure I haven't sucked nearly so many cocks." Harry smirked at Draco's mock scorn and stood up to wrap his arms around Draco, leaning in between his legs.  
  
Draco sighed. "I'm not used to anyone caring enough to try. The spirit is willing, Harry. The flesh-- well, the rest of that trite mess. I might've settled down with you after a few years of running you through hoops." He nudged his face against Harry's and then kissed his bottom lip.  
  
"I know. I know... you'd probably be a total arse to me until I gave up and then you'd come back and offer to give me everything I wanted. Then I'd play along until I got bored from winning the challenge and dump you." Harry grinned and kissed him back, closing his eyes and thinking about how unfair this was. Then again, would he even be here if Draco weren't diseased? Probably not. Draco wouldn't have been at that club; he wouldn't be involved with this mystery. He wouldn't have fucked him, nor followed him. That was life-- a chain of events all as connected as they are isolated. Removing one component could topple everything that's been built.  
  
"Oh right, as if you could've ever have gotten enough with me. Particularly if you ever got me to admit anything. You're too big of a sap for all of that. No, you'd start talking adoption and I'd have to dump you on principle." Draco slid his hands up and down Harry's arms and then rested his head on his chin. "Anyway, didn't you make arrangements for your passing before you went into battle with Voldemort?"  
  
The novelty of having people saying Voldemort's name aloud without fear never got old to Harry. "No. I knew I was going to win."  
  
"Well, I know I'm _not_ going to win. So there you go; my dirty little paperwork admission of defeat. No one gets out alive." Perking a brow, Draco slid his arms back around him to stroke his lower back. "You should at least make a will."  
  
"I guess so." This conversation was morbid and getting entirely too real. What would he have done had he had died? Well, other than died, he supposed not much. But it would've been nice if questions about Hermione's burial had been answered for him since her parents had passed and Ron wasn't in much of a state to answer anything. "So you did it for Millicent?"  
  
"That?" he asked, kicking his heel on the file door. "Well, partially. Also, you know me. I like things a certain way."  
  
"Even in death, you're inescapably snotty," Harry teased.  
  
Smirking, Draco replied, "Well, we are who we are, even unto the very end."  
  
Harry swallowed and looked back at the parchment.  
  
Draco kissed the top of his head. "I'm going back to bed."  
  
The room was lightening in blue tones as the morning savagely carried on, stealing away the gloom. "It's dawn."  
  
"Well spotted. Good night," Draco teased his fingers through Harry's hair and leaned in again to steal a quick kiss.  
  
"Good morning," Harry corrected.   
  
Draco gestured dismissively. "Whatever. I need more sleep. We should go to the club again tomorrow night."  
  
Harry tried not to think about the club or what Draco did the last time they were there. It would just make his temper flare. "Maybe we should think about investigating the church instead. It seems like you've been watching the clubs all of this time. Why did you go that route?"  
  
Draco leaned against the doorframe and closed his eyes. Harry was amused to observe he was wearing socks and nothing more. "I was hoping to catch someone rounding up new parishioners. I wanted to stop it before it started. I have a few suspicious people I'm watching." He stopped abruptly, appearing as if he were going to continue that thought, but didn't.   
  
Harry thought about the reedy man Draco was with in the bathroom moments after he'd seen Nott. Perhaps Nott was one of the people Draco was watching and he'd shagged that man to keep him from going with him. Harry thought about mentioning it, but decided against it. He didn't want to have to explain to Malfoy how he knew for certain that Nott was dead and that person was an imposter. "What do you do when you see them?"   
  
"I watched who they talked to at first and saw who was at the church the next Sunday and Wednesday. I'm collecting evidence now. If I could, I'd want prevent the men from going with them. That's harder to do when you don't know who they are." He opened his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest, shivering against a chill that Harry didn't feel.  
  
"Maybe they use disguises. Polyjuice?" Harry crossed the room and wrapped his arms around Draco's tense body.  
  
"That's possible," Draco said in a stilted voice.  
  
"Maybe it would be smarter to infiltrate the church. You never know what you might overhear." Harry kissed softly over Draco's blanched face.   
  
"I'd thought of that, but before I didn't have anyone to worry about where I was if I were kidnapped. I only contact Snape when I need more potions" Draco seemed to relax then and nipped Harry's bottom lip. He pulled Harry to the bedroom.   
  
Harry felt a guilty thrill that it was he, and not Snape, that Draco thought would fret about him if he were missing. It had been a long time since anyone really needed him. "If something happened, I'd save you."  
  
"I know you would." Draco smiled as he slid under the covers and turned to face Harry who followed him into the bed and then rolled onto his back. Resting his head on Harry's chest again, Draco whispered, "I'll see if Malkin can whip up a cossack."


	7. Chapter 7

The ups and downs of Draco's disease often filled Harry with false hope that he was getting better. Some days Draco would be his old arrogant self, making pratty demands about fresh pancakes and wanting to go shopping. They'd go out, be social until Draco started to look tired and then could spend well into the night cuddling and making love.  
  
Today he couldn't even get out of bed, but just lay there, summoning things to his bed as he glared at Harry, resentful of his health. Harry flitted around the flat, trying to anticipate Draco's needs until he was relegated to the living area for 'being too noisy.' Harry tried not to take it personally, and the good days always outweighed the bad. Hearing a loud thud from the other room above the din of the telly, Harry hopped up and found Draco in the loo.   
  
Though he was miserably ill and hung over the toilet, Draco appeared to be lightening up, or perhaps he just realized what an arse he was being.  
  
"Can I get you anything, Draco?"  
  
"A new body?"  
  
Harry sighed and knelt down next to Draco, petting his hair back from his face. He kissed his temple. "I would if I could."   
  
Draco leaned into the affection, but kept his head down. His body lurched and retched again before he could answer. "Give me yours."  
  
"Didn't I last night?"  
  
He smirked and raised his head, lips a mess of puffiness from their revelry the previous night, glistening with abandoned spittle shot through with bile. "Why don't you do something useful instead of tempting me with things you know I can't have."  
  
Harry knew that Draco was just being caustic, but he couldn't help but feel guilty that perhaps he'd pushed Draco too far physically. He realized these cycles were going to happen either way but the exertion couldn't be helping. "It's time for your potion. I'll get it." He started to stand when Draco grabbed his arm.  
  
"If you really loved me..." he stopped to retch again and Harry watched in anguish, his body wanting to react in sympathy, but that would do no one any good. He waited for Draco's seizing to dissipate before he got up. "You'd walk on your hands to get it."  
  
"Walk on my hands?" Harry snatched a piece of tissue from the roll and dabbed at Draco's mouth. He hadn't pulled a stunt like that since before Hogwarts. "If I fall and break my neck, I'll haunt you."  
  
"Not for long." Draco smirked. Harry hated Draco's morbid jokes like that, but he'd walked into it.  
  
Nothing for it now.   
  
He looked at the tile, thinking this was going to hurt if he ended up face first on it. There was barely room to even get his palms flat and kick up. He caught the counter the first time and landed on his chest. He shot Draco a look for his snicker. Trying again, he deftly avoided the sink and was up. His neck muscles felt the most strained, and then he felt it in his wrists.   
  
Movement... right. Harry inhaled deeply and then prayed for balance as he managed to somehow balance on one hand long enough to slide the other forward. Going on faith more than skill, he inched forward till he was almost across the bathroom. Harry opened his eyes to find himself in front of the linen closet where Draco kept the potions and he started to lower his legs.  
  
"Hang on. Give us a song."  
  
"What?" Harry opened his eyes and looked at Draco, so pale and leaning on his hand, elbow on the rim of the toilet bowl. He looked innocently gleeful like that, watching Harry perform, and his heart sank, knowing that he wouldn't be able to deny him. "What song?"  
  
"I've no idea. Know any Weird Sisters?"  
  
He did, but upside down and on the spot, Harry couldn't remember anything. He shook his head.  
  
"Just... sing the first thing that comes into your mind."  
  
"Er...." Harry looked around wildly as if fluffy towels or bathmats might have lyrics imprinted somewhere. "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Draco..." he was cut off by a piercing cackle and his eyes widened.  
  
Draco's head fell back and his hands clapped together. When he looked up again, he was beaming in delight and _giggling_. Harry rolled his eyes and dropped his feet to the floor. After scrambling up, he took an awkward bow. Their festivities ground to a halt when Harry noticed that he only had a few more phials of potions left. "You're almost out."  
  
Sighing, Draco nodded and flushed the toilet. He grabbed another piece of tissue from the roll and rubbed it over his lips again as he stood. "Very well. I guess it's time to ask for more."  
  
\--  
  
Harry continually checked in on Draco at his writing desk, hoping to see what sort of information Draco was passing to Snape. Or that's what he told himself he was doing. In truth, he was jealous that a long note was going to Snape. But he didn't ask.   
  
The next day, Snape responded in a terse note that read quite annoyed. Perhaps Draco had been going on about how much he enjoyed being with him. That was what he liked to think, anyway. The last sentence, however, shocked him. " _Send Potter along to retrieve your potions in the morning_."  
  
"I don't understand. Why does he want to meet with _me_?" Harry tucked in his shirt as he looked at Draco propped up in the pillows. Harry was pleased to see the color back in his lover's cheeks.  
  
"I don't know, Harry. I'm guessing he thinks you'll give him an honest report on how I'm doing. He always thinks I'm lying to him." Draco pushed the covers down to his waist.  
  
Grinning, Harry stood on his knees at the end of the bed. "Say that again." He leaned in and blew over Draco's flushed chest.  
  
"Err... Snape thinks you'll give a more honest report?" Draco fanned his face and watched Harry blowing over him. "You know this doesn't count as a blow job, right?"  
  
Harry slid to the side and helped fan Draco, pulling the covers up and down. "That's not what I was doing, and not what I meant. I meant that you called me Harry and not Potty again."  
  
"Oh, you want to hear that again, _Harry_?" Draco let his head fall back against the pillows, basking in the cool air Harry was providing.  
  
He couldn't help but grin and trail sloppy kisses over Draco's exposed neck. Then he blew over those. "Are you hot?"  
  
"You know I am, _Harry_ ," he teased. Draco slid his hands around Harry and pulled him closer. "Mm... you're too hot for me." He pouted at Harry and threaded his fingers through his hair.  
  
Harry tried to ignore how frail Draco was, how his bones protruded and how despite all of the rest, he still looked tired. He caressed Draco's cheek and leaned in for a long, slow kiss. "I don't want to leave," he whispered against his lips, pressing their foreheads together. "But you're almost out of potions."  
  
"I know. I know. I don't want you to go either, but you won't be gone for long, I'm sure. It's not like you and Snape can stand to stay in the same room for an extended period of time." He looked into Harry's eyes a moment and then pulled back to reach to the nightstand for his glasses and placed them on his face. "Go on, hunter/gatherer. Harass Snape and bring me some potions."  
  
Stealing one more kiss from Draco, Harry slipped off of the bed and straightened his glasses. "Do you need anything else before I go? Water? Tea? Toast?"  
  
Draco threw the covers back and wiggled out of bed. "No, I'm going to get them myself. I'm feeling good today. I might see to Madam Malkin's for a cossack."  
  
"No, wait on that and I'll go with you." Harry stepped closer to Draco to help him and Draco waved him off.  
  
"I'm fine, Potty." Harry looked annoyed. Draco smirked. "If you hadn't ravished me so much the other night I wouldn't have needed bed rest."  
  
"It was your idea!"  
  
Draco gave Harry a placating kiss on the corner of his mouth. "It was worth it. Now go on. Get your boyfriend some of the good stuff, hmm?" Harry leaned in again to be halted by Draco's hand on his lips. "Keep this up and you'll never go."  
  
"Right. I'll see you... in a bit." Harry looked longingly at Draco and then headed out of the warded flat to Disapparate.  
  
\--  
  
It was his second trip in two months to the place he'd studiously tried to avoid since his final battle with Voldemort. Everything always came back to Hogwarts on some level, at least when it came to the second part of his life. His life was in strata. The first was marked like days carved into the inside of the cupboard on Privet Drive. The second marked with his unwanted fame and the responsibility of war, the ruined fairy tale of being rescued from his humble life. The third was now; the aftermath. Where did you go from saving the world? Right back at the start-- a boy he grew up hating who became a man he couldn't rescue from his disease.  
  
  
Harry stopped for a moment on the outskirts of the barrier to Hogwarts castle, allowing himself to shed a few tears of frustration at watching his lover deteriorating. Over how Draco worked so hard to appear upbeat for Harry, as if it were somehow his obligation to seem all right with dying young-- and how Harry acted as if he didn't see right through him, and that he was just as pseudo upbeat as Draco. He didn't want to break down in front of Snape. He didn't want to break down in front of anyone, so out here on the periphery, Harry sat down and let himself go.  
  
\--  
  
The headmaster's office was as different as it was the same as it always had been. Dumbledore gave Harry a friendly grin and Harry had taken two steps towards the portrait when Snape dramatically swept to the desk. He shooed Harry to a guest chair and took his place behind Dumbledore's desk-- no, not Dumbledore's desk, Headmaster Snape's desk now. Harry looked away, feeling his blood pressure rise. Seeing Snape here was harder than he'd thought.  
  
"I have prepared Draco's potions as he has asked for them. I suppose that you are wondering why it is I've called you here rather than him." Snape's expression was neutral, unreadable, but his eyes bored into Harry's, so Harry looked away.  
  
Harry looked up at Dumbledore's portrait to answer it, a silent accusation. How could Snape sit in the same room with Dumbledore's portrait, knowing what he'd done? How did the other portraits tolerate him? "I _assumed_ you knew that he was ill and that making the trip would be difficult and cared for Draco's well-being. Although why you couldn't just owl the potions..."  
  
"They're too fragile to send." Snape's response was automatic, like a question he'd answered many times-- a lie he'd told so many times as to become rote. "I have called you here because the increase in potions he has asked for. I assume this is because of activities he has planned..."  
  
The words burned already, and while Harry had promised himself to try to remain calm, he couldn't fathom sitting there for a lecture by a murdering pedophile about how he should behave around Draco. If the irony of that situation didn't strike Snape in his own mind, Harry was going to make it plain. "Oh yes, _activities_. That must really burn you. Does it make you jealous?"   
  
"Don't be ridiculous."   
  
Harry noted with some satisfaction that Snape's sallow cheeks were tinged with pink. "Oh right, I bet he's too old for your tastes now."  
  
Snape sat back and glowered. "Then he's told you."  
  
"Yes, he did. Do you think that you meant something to him? Do you think that--" Sitting forward, Harry was gagging for a fight, even if it was decidedly impolitic given how important these potions were to Draco.  
  
"I'm not having this conversation with you." Snape rose from his chair, sending it skidding over the hewn floor with a reverberating shriek. Harry noted that Snape avoided looking at Dumbledore's portrait, seeing him almost have the picture in his line of sight and then turn away. "I did not call you here over such a trivial matter. I wished to talk to you about his diminishing health and what you two have been doing..."  
  
"Just say what you mean, _Severus_." He spat the name out as if it were what he wanted to call him, the label he wanted to use: _murderer_. "Why don't you just say that you want to keep us from _fucking_?"  
  
"How _dare_ you." Snape whirled around at the vulgarity. "I only have Draco's best interests at heart. I am trying to extend what little life that man may have."  
  
"Why? Why do you care if he lives a few more days? Especially when he's living them out with me? Why don't you just come to his flat and end him? Isn't that what you do? Don't you _end lives_?" When Snape advanced on him, Harry stood up and thrust his hand into his wand pocket.  
  
"You're a fool, Potter. You'll always be a fool because you don't _listen_." Their wands clashed, pointing at one another's heart as they glared, eyes not faltering. "You make so many assumptions, but you don't have all the answers, you don't even ask the right questions."  
  
"You just don't want him to be happy. You're threatened by me. You fancy yourself Malfoy's one great love, don't you?" He pushed his wand harder against Snape's chest.  
  
Snape withdrew, shaking his head in disgust. It left Harry with his wand pointing at his back. "You don't know anything," he said quietly. He headed behind his desk and picked up a small bag that rattled with glass phials and thrust them into Harry's hand. "Just... watch out for him. Do not let him get in over his head."  
  
" _I'm_ taking care of him now." Harry tucked his wand back into his pocket and grabbed for the bag.  
  
Snape looked at him again and exhaled. "There is great danger in what you two are engaging in. This is bigger than you realize."  
  
"We use the proper charms," Harry snarled as he started to back up towards the door. He had what he needed; the last thing in the world he wanted was a safe sex lecture from Snape.  
  
Shaking his head, Snape stared at papers sitting on his desk. "You foolish, silly man, this is a matter of life and death, his and yours."  
  
"This about your wanting what you can't have; he's with me now. You are a filthy traitor, a murderer, and while you can provide potions and the like, he's otherwise much better without you." The expression on Snape's face barely changed as Harry spoke, much to his chagrin. He wanted Snape to be provoked, to shout, to try and hex him so that he might have a reason to back him into a corner and mercifully leave him alive. He wanted Snape to be afraid, afraid of him, to understand just how deep his hatred went and how disgusted he was that he'd had any part in Draco's life-- even if it was to save it. Twice.  
  
Snape folded his arms and glared icily. "Get out."  
  
With that, Harry spun around and headed out of the office.  
  
\--  
  
Harry stopped by his flat to pick up more clothing and a few personal items. If Draco had noticed the slow progression of Harry's things into his space, he hadn't mentioned it beyond an amused look the crowd of toiletries on his sink. Letting himself into Draco's flat after a quick Apparition and looking down at the scrap of paper that told him where he was going, Harry stepped quietly over to his lover swaddled in blankets on the couch with a dropped copy of _The Daily Prophet_ on the blond hardwood floor.  
  
  
The discarded bag from Madam Malkin's sat neatly folded on the coffee table, the garment already put away. Not wishing to interrupt Draco's sleep after ducking in to check on him, he turned to head back to the living area.  
  
"I was thinking that we should go to the service again Sunday morning. I've been watching them when I could get out there, but the clergy appears to change weekly. Well, they look like they're changing. Some of them appear to be just taking on the appearance of some of the Muggles attending the church." Draco rubbed his hand over his groggy face and sat up.  
  
"I didn't mean to wake you." Harry came back and sat on the edge of the couch. He reached into his pocket for the bulging baggie of potions, which Draco took from him.  
  
Pulling at the silver cords, Draco inventoried the bag. "It's all right. I'm sleeping my life away anyway. So Sunday?"  
  
"That's tomorrow."  
  
Though he looked a bit surprised, Draco nodded. "Well, just to observe. Maybe I can mug an Inferi for some hair while we're there. That way I'll fit in when I go in later."  
  
Harry thought about Nott again. Whomever was posing as him had to have access to his hair, didn't they? Although by now he knew that there was more than one way to replicate someone's appearance. Only someone rather close to Nott would know the difference. Harry hoped  
that "Nott" would turn up at the church so he could question him; maybe Draco would know the difference well enough to unsettle the fake. "All right, then. In the morning." He kissed Draco's forehead and pulled him close. "But for now, let's get you some food."  
  
\--  
  
There was something off about the service, Harry knew it from the second they entered the church. Though the faces were as cow-eyed as ever, none of them appeared to look directly that him. Had it been this way the time before? He hadn't been paying attention then, had he? Now the whole place screamed wrong, bad, and dangerous. Keeping a protective arm around Draco, they took a spot near the back of the church. The place was silent but for the reverberations of movement, the parishioner's sallow faces coloured by the fragments of light that spilled through the elongated stained glass windows.  
  
As the service started, Harry watched the altar boys and then the priest came out. The man was tall and proud, his ivory hair long and shiny, grey eyes cold with a flash of knife-like teeth. Harry felt Draco freeze next to him as Harry blinked a few times. Draco stood and the priest started up the aisle towards them. "It... it can't be..."  
  
Harry jumped up next to Draco and grabbed him tightly. "No, it isn't...you know that isn't him."  
  
What appeared to be Lucius Malfoy reached out, curling his finger to beckon them. "Come here, ickle boy. Come see your _father_." He appeared amused with his own play on words as he continued to advance on them in a slow saunter.  
  
"You... who are you? I'll kill you!" Draco lunged towards the aisle but Harry held him fast. He wriggled and struggled, scratching at Harry's hands to try to force resistance. "Let me go! Let me go _now_!"  
  
Harry hated to use this much force on his ailing boyfriend, but Draco was strong when he needed to be. Holding Draco with a crushing clutch, he whispered, "No... that's what he... what _it_ wants. Don't, Draco. Come on."  
  
"Did you bwing your ickle boyfwend, little dragon? Want your father to meet whom you've been disgracing yourself with?" Lucius pulled his wand with a flourish. "Oh, stay a while, we'll get cozy."  
  
"You're going to _die_." Draco fumbled for his wand, not noticing the Inferi closing in on them.  
  
Harry noticed it, however, and though he hated to do this, Draco was obviously too caught up with the vision of his father to make a rational decision. He gave one last look at Lucius; there was something familiar about him. However, what was familiar was incongruous with his memories of how Lucius Malfoy behaved, how he held himself, how he would react to his son. Harry tried to burn the gestures and words into his memory for future consideration.  
  
"Come to me, Draco. Bring your children unto me," purred the faux Lucius, his visage reflecting a savage malice, as if he knew exactly what this would do to Draco, and loving the power. The Inferi just looked _hungry_.  
  
Draco let out a cry of frustration that his arms were pinned down to his sides and he could not reach his wand. Harry was holding him in a vise-like bear hug. "I'm sorry," whispered Harry as he closed his eyes. He hoped Draco wouldn't struggle too much and get splinched as he concentrated on the front of Draco's flat and Apparated them there.  
  
"WHAT? NO!" Draco struggled hard as Harry opened the door. He grabbed Draco's wand, and pushed him into the flat. He slammed the door and hexed it closed.  
  
Harry pocketed both wands and dove in to grab Draco into his arms again. "Draco, you know that's not really your father. You know it can't be. Think, Draco, _think_. You're smarter than this."  
  
"I know that, you think I don't know that? Don't touch me!" Draco shoved Harry away, pushing him against the couch.  
  
"Draco..." Harry righted himself and stared Draco down, remaining calm, "It's what they wanted. They were going to capture us. They were _waiting_ for us to show up, Draco."  
  
Rubbing his forehead, Draco gave Harry a quick apologetic look. "I know... I know you're right. But my _father_ , Harry. They're _using my father_ like an... an Inferi."   
  
"But he's still alive, isn't he?" Harry reached out for Draco and this time was allowed to hold him. Draco rested his head against Harry's shoulder.  
  
"If you call that alive."  
  
Harry rubbed his hands up and down Draco's back, stalling a moment as he thought about how this worked. Lucius was in Azkaban, and if he wasn't dead and not alive, he must have been Kissed. "We need to look at this practically. What that means is that whoever that was has contacts at Azkaban. It would have to be through the Dementors. What does that tell us?" He kissed Draco's temple as he tried to soothe him, he could feel the blood pumping angrily through his veins.  
  
"Probably Death Eaters or someone associated with them?" Draco buried his face in the crook of Harry's neck, his breathing slowed to a more controlled pace.  
  
"Or at the very least someone who would promise them people to feed on. Which obviously they could provide, given the Muggles living around there and their complete disregard for them. It was just a ploy, Draco. But it does show that they're on to us. Maybe we should wait a few weeks before you go undercover?" He started to pull Draco towards the bedroom wondering if the person posing as Lucius was also posing as Nott. No, that person wouldn't want to foil their plans. The person who posed as Lucius was definitely trying to scare them away. If those people had intended to capture them, he and Draco would still be there. That much Harry was certain of.  
  
"I need to end this," he whispered, following Harry, allowing him to undress him down to his pants before rolling into his bed. He patted the spot next to him.  
  
Flashing a quick smile, Harry toed off his shoes and stripped down to his boxers and followed suit. Even though he wasn't tired, he would lie here with Draco and coax him to sleep. Then he was going to owl Tonks and try to get some answers.  
  
\--  
  
Harry awoke to the tapping of a keyboard. He sat up and grabbed his glasses; surprised to see Draco sitting there typing. Glancing to the back of the box, he didn't see any cords, and yet the glow of the monitor on Draco's pallid face was unmistakable.  
  
"But... there's no cords..." he said, his mouth agape.  
  
"I know. It's like magic, isn't it?"   
  
At Draco's cocky grin, Harry scoffed. "I should've known you'd be cheating."  
  
"There's an energy crisis, didn't you hear?"   
  
"Are you sure you didn't just forget to pay the utilities?"  
  
Draco blushed and cleared his throat.  
  
As Harry moved to stand behind Draco, he heard a frantic clicking and saw windows closing. He thought he saw Tonks's name in the email program, but he couldn't be sure.   
  
"Were you writing to Tonks?" Harry put his hands on Draco's shoulders and started to knead.  
  
He felt Draco's muscles tighten. "Who?"  
  
"Tonks, the Auror... your cousin?"  
  
Draco remained tense, but he spoke casually. "Pfft. No. Disowned cousin. Besides, the Ministry wants nothing to do with me."  
  
"Right." Although why he'd be lying about emailing Tonks was curious, it was pretty clear he wasn't going to get an answer out of Draco. "So why did you get a computer, anyway?"  
  
"Porn." Draco turned around in his chair and smirked.  
  
"Thought so."  
  
"The Ministry has an appalling lack of respect for accessibility. The only way to look things up was to go to the Ministry, where I am not exactly welcomed. Muggles, however, put everything on databases, and most databases wind up on the Internet. So it was to my investigative advantage to buy one." He turned back around and waved his hand in front of the monitor and it shut down.   
  
"What were you looking up?"  
  
Draco smirked. "Records."  
  
Harry rolled his eyes.   
  
"Wizards and witches I thought I saw, what became of various Death Eaters. Gavin."  
  
"Wizards like Nott?" Harry ventured. He searched Draco's face for a response, but his expression was fixedly neutral. Draco looked away. Harry's brows rose. "What did you find out?"  
  
"He's dead."  
  
"You've seen him, too?" Harry stepped in closer, kneeling down to look up at Draco.   
  
Expression wary, Draco nodded.  
  
"How do you know he's dead?"  
  
"That's what the Ministry says."   
  
Harry tried to meet Draco's eyes, adrenaline rushing through his veins. Draco seemed more certain than just what the Ministry alleged. "Do you think different?"  
  
Draco pressed his lips together and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he spoke slowly. "I think that there are many things that are not what they seem. I don't believe that Nott is someone you should worry about."  
  
That seemed hard to believe, but it was creeping into his consciousness that Draco had mentioned another name. "Gavin, who is that? Is that... who Nott is now?"  
  
"No." Draco slid his fingers through Harry's hair. "No, he's not Nott, he is... was... a Muggle. The one who infe--"  
  
"Infected you."  
  
Draco nodded. "I tracked him down, and collected other names as I could. I'm afraid I just don't have the resources to follow everyone at the church."  
  
Obviously that would be too much to expect one person to do. Harry tried to imagine what it was like to see someone you were intimate with roaming around alive, but not alive. But then Harry couldn't presume to know how well Draco would've known any of his conquests. "How did you narrow it down to Gavin?"  
  
Immediately Harry regretted the question, given the cold glare he received in response. "It was quite easy to piece together, actually.  
  
"Oh, did he seem ill?"  
  
At this, Draco pushed back and stood. "No, he didn't seem ill at all when I met him two years prior. You assume too much, Potter."  
  
Harry stood, watching Draco pace before coming to rest in front of the window, his arms folded either in cold or irritation. "I'm sorry. You're right; I did assume... given your behaviour... was he infected when you met?"  
  
"No."   
  
He was disappointed that his apology didn't garner more of a response, but perhaps that was just something that Draco had expected. "So... he cheated on you?"  
  
"On heaven and earth, Potter, there are more than just monogamous relationships; although ours was more or less on and off again. We just never seemed to be in the right place in our lives at the right time." Draco turned around, one hand over his flushed face. Harry crossed to him to hold him. After a minor struggle, Draco allowed it.  
  
He thought of the hoops Draco mentioned jumping through and wondered how many this Gavin might've made it through. It stung a little to not be the only one who had gotten this close to Draco. Harry knew that he was sharing him with Snape already, but evidently there was also this Muggle. And Millicent. And petty as it was to think of, Ursius. "What was he like?"  
  
"Stupid. Brave. Fierce. He never let me get away with anything," he said, resting his head on Harry's shoulder. Harry took some measure of comfort that it sounded as if it would be someone he'd like, unlike Snape.   
  
"He sounds nice." Harry shifted them towards the bed, Draco's skin was searing hot. "Did you take your potions?"  
  
"He wasn't nice at all. He was wretched, and mean, and petty and... he left..." Draco shook his head that he'd forgotten his potion. "He was taken, like everyone is," he whispered as he curled under the covers, drawing them up to his chin.   
  
"You're right, he sounds awful," Harry cooed as he headed to the loo to get Draco's potion. He came back, uncorking the phial as he sat next to him on the bed. Brushing back the blond strands that were beginning to darken against Draco's wet forehead, he asked, "What did he look like?"  
  
Harry wasn't sure if Draco was just flushed or if he were blushing. For a moment they just stared at one another, then Draco took his potion, swallowing it back in a gulp. He leaned over the side of the bed and pulled the lower drawer on the nightstand out and rifled through the old copies of books and magazines till he fished out a rather ordinary Muggle picture. Harry did a double-take at the two men in the picture arm-in-arm. With the dark hair and glasses, at a glance, he'd almost thought it was he standing in front of a kebab shop with a younger Draco. But Gavin's smile was different, and he was taller and a bit broader with an air of self-confidence he was sure he never had. "He's um... "  
  
"Fit, I know," said Draco as he rolled onto his back again, his eyelids fluttering as the pain killers in the potion clearly started to kick in. "Reminded me of someone the first time I saw him." He smiled; eyes still closed as he felt for Harry and pulled him down onto the bed to cuddle with. "But I talked to him anyway."  
  
It was terribly flattering to think that maybe Draco had been seeking him out, even in an abstract way. Though now it was hard to say whether Gavin was a replacement for him or he was a replacement for Gavin. But Draco's arms were warm and the covers were soft, and with the clock ticking on whatever time they would have together, Harry decided not to care.


	8. Chapter 8

The leaves dappled the clearing, confusing the bright day with a verdant glow. When the wind picked up, the flora broke the silence with a subtle susurration. The trio plus Hagrid stood together; Hermione mouthed the words of the clues she'd picked up about the Horcrux. " _Wait in the silence of the third clearing of the forest forbidden. Only the pure among you shall pass the test_."  
  
Ron's fingers flexed over his wand. Pure. Ron was the only pureblood amongst them. He was more frightened than he would let on, but ground his teeth to bear it.   
  
When the proud, ivory beast's golden horn first struck out from amongst the bushes, Hermione gasped. "Surely not."  
  
Harry looked between his friends and then back to the unicorn. Voldemort had fed on the blood of these creatures, and he was using them to guard his prize. Helga Hufflepuff's cup. Or so he wagered it would be. It was the last that was left. What an ironic twist that someone so vulgar would leave his soul with something so untainted as a unicorn-- something that he'd preyed upon to extend his life. He supposed it had been a last-ditch attempt to leave something of him at least close to the school.   
  
How he'd goaded a unicorn to protect it was beyond Harry. It was a secret that died with him.  
  
Stepping forward, Ron tried the greeting he knew would work with Hippogriffs. He bowed and waited. Hagrid kept unusually silent. Ron took it for a tacit agreement that he was doing the right thing. The bow was not returned. Instead, the animal stepped forward and pressed its horn to Ron's sternum, forcing him to stumble back.   
  
"Pure," Hermione whispered. She looked nervously at Harry and then up to Hagrid, who nodded back down to her. Blushing faintly, she placed her hands on Ron's shoulders and pulled him back.   
  
"What?" Ron looked alarmed and then down at Hermione, furrowing his brows. "I'm a pureblood!"  
  
"It's not that kind of pure, Ron. It meant virginal." Hermione's flush radiated.   
  
Ron gestured helplessly to Harry, and felt his own face light up. "But I'm..."   
  
Hagrid cleared his throat. "Needs to be a maiden. Er... a girl, ye know."  
  
"Oh." Ron stepped out of the way and next to Harry. Neither boy looked at one another.  
  
Hermione tiptoed closer to the unicorn. The beast lowered its head to her, sinking to the weedy undergrowth in a proud bow. When her fingers first touched the silken, slightly damp nose, there was a flash of light and on the ground sat the untarnished cup of Hufflepuff. "Thank you," Hermione whispered, patting along the animal's elongated snout. She knelt down and picked the cup up.  
  
There were a series of loud cracks and standing before them was none other than Voldemort, flanked by several masked and hooded followers. Immediately, the unicorn raised and turned its head to the serpentine man. Its eyes went wild before it lowered its head to charge for him, aiming its spiral horn to true to drive him home.  
  
Though regular magic did not work on magical beasts, Voldemort defied magic, defied explanation, defied death itself-- at least today. His spidery hand rose up and then curled in a crushing motion. The movement halted the charging unicorn. It reared up in defiance, legs flailing uselessly before it tipped sideways, silvery foam pouring from its mouth. "Collect them, and my prize," his high, cold voice barked.   
  
Hagrid charged at the Death Eaters as Ron and Harry pulled their wands at the ready. Harry had already spun out two stunner spells before he began shielding himself. He mouthed the words to his spells, but managed to keep them silent and still potent as he dueled one of the masked intruders.  
  
Ron had one of his own fighting with him, but he kept looking to Hermione, who appeared somehow entranced.   
  
Voldemort was staring intently at her, his hand pointed at her. She was staggering closer to him in a daze, her face screwed up with concentration. Hermione was fighting. One arm clenched around the cup, her other hand twitched and tried desperately to move to her wand.  
  
After felling the unusually tall blond man that he had been dueling, Harry turned his attention fully to her struggle. "Hermione!" He pointed his wand at her, only to have a stocky Death Eater trundle away from Hagrid to battle him.  
  
Hearing her name seemed to spur her. Her eyes narrowed and her mouth formed voiceless words. With a hard jerk, she flung the cup towards Harry. It was her last act of defiance before the Imperius took hold and she finished her steps to Voldemort.  
  
Catching the oversized, golden cup, Harry clutched it to his chest. The Death Eater he was fighting sent another wild, purple hex at his chest that was shielded by Voldemort himself. "You fool!" the Dark Lord shrieked. He glared at his minion and then at Harry. His arm tightened around Hermione and all fighting ceased to watch the confrontation. "Give that back if you value your friend's life as much as you claim."  
  
"No, Harry!" Hermione's brown eyes unclouded and she shook her head violently at him.  
  
Ron took the break in action to stun the Death Eater in front of him and his eyes darted between Voldemort and Harry, his expression anguished.   
  
Harry's fingers flexed over Hufflepuff's cup. Glaring into the red eyes and then down into Hermione's frightened brown eyes, he pulled the cup away from his chest, ready to throw it. But even as he tried, it wouldn't budge from his hand. It remained as if glued. "A foolish ploy from a foolish boy," hissed Voldemort. His spidery hand squeezed around Hermione's neck, and the other slid over the top of his head.  
  
"No, you don't understand. I'm not... wait!" Harry cried. His eyes caught on a slight movement from one of the Death Eaters, one with beady, black eyes and a curtain of black hair. "WAIT!"  
  
It happened in an instant. Something green emanated from Voldemort's hands and the light faded from Hermione's wide, open eyes. Ron screamed. A white-haired Death Eater gasped and Disapparated. Harry's arm was still outstretched with the intent to throw the cup back to Voldemort. It hung there stupidly as Harry gazed in shock at his best friend dropping to the ground.   
  
Even now, he was too stunned with the swiftness of her end to think anything beyond that she'd died a virgin.   
  
Voldemort was but a precious few paces from him when a blur of white streaked across Harry's vision. Then his arm was dragging him until his hand hit something solid. There was a loud crash, the crunch of wood and metal and Voldemort was again screaming and then he was gone with a loud crack.  
  
Harry looked up his arm. It held an unnatural angle. The cup was crushed against the trunk of the tree, his hand under it. Poking through it was the spiraled, golden horn of the unicorn. The animal sputtered one last time, and then its body collapsed, held up like a morbid marionette by its horn that had destroyed Voldemort's Horcrux.  
  
After a series of loud cracks that signaled the exit of the remaining Death Eaters, Harry was surprised to hear shouting coming from Ron. Who was he arguing with? Though his mind and body were in shock, he managed to fix his sight on Ron. He held an unmasked Death Eater by the front of his robes. Theodore Nott-- a classmate. Ron's face was a livid red and glistening with flowing tears.   
  
Nott was smirking, laughing-- mocking him. Harry could barely hear what was being shouted, but the last thing he remembered coming from Nott were the words, "Filthy Mudblood."   
  
Of all the Unforgivables, the Killing Curse was the most final and irreversible of the lot. In one instant with a flash of wand and the intent to kill, everything changes. First Hermione, now Nott. He'd watched Nott's face go from malice to shock to a bewilderingly absent expression before he crumpled to the ground.   
  
Harry held his hand up, feeling the swirl of magical water around his hand. He shouldn't have gone back this far into this memory, he'd stowed them away for a reason; they hurt. They brought him back to this time and place where the grass smelled so fresh and new and yet the promise of the sickly sweet death curled at the edge of his senses.   
  
Fast forwarding through the tears, Ron releasing him from the tree, hysterical with loss and terror over what he'd done, he paused briefly over his one-armed embrace with Ron, glaring at the expression on his own face. That moment, the wretched, traitorous moment where he thought that perhaps he had a clear path to pursue Ron-- he'd never hated himself more than at that moment. That wasn't what he was here for, though. Waving his hand, he moved hastily past the awkward kiss and Ron's fit to when they moved on what they would do about Nott.  
  
He watched himself start and whirl around. He went back to watch that moment again, wondering what he was reacting to. A sound in the forest? But that could be anything. He moved the memory back and kept his eyes on Nott from the time he fell back to this point. The body didn't so much as twitch. No, Nott was dead, most definitely dead.  
  
Then came the portion of the night that was truly grotesque. The forest was silent but for the shouts of _Diffendo_ as he and Ron magically dismembered Nott's body and then scored it deep into the earth in several places. By the end of it, he and Ron were sodden in blackish strips of dead blood, blood that someone thought was worth fighting over, but it looked the same to him. Ron was ghoulishly mollified by this task; something that terrified Harry as much as he envied him his certainty. If he'd only known how uncertain Ron really was, maybe it would've been different.   
  
Harry forced himself back out of the memory and stood in front of the Pensieve, staring at the swirling mist of him and Ron cleaning up and collecting Hermione's body to take back to her parents. Stirring his wand into the mixture, he culled the memory back and poured it back into the phial and set it in amongst the rest of the war memories he'd removed. He set the rack of phials back into the dusty cardboard box and placed the box amongst the other myriad unopened boxes in his flat.  
  
\--  
  
Draco pulled on the cassock and fiddled with the fussy Roman collar. It wasn't unlike formal robes and Harry had a fleeting thought about Draco's formal robes for the Yule Ball. Watching Draco push the tunic down over his thin frame, Harry couldn't help but gape at the mirror image of stoic beauty of his artificial cleric.   
  
"Stop staring at me like a love-sick altar boy, it's unnerving." Draco turned around and smirked at Harry.   
  
"That's not usually how it works, you know." Harry leaned against the doorway and leered.  
  
"Oh, did I put it on wrong?" Draco looked down at the buttons. "I feel like I should do a Snape impression. _Fifty points from Gryffindor, for gaping_!"  
  
Harry stifled a giggle and rolled his eyes. "No, it's on right. I just meant that usually it's the clergy molesting the altar boys, not the other way around. So, are we going to reenact someone else's bad fantasy about what I might let Snape do to me if he and I were left alone? Are you going to bend me over your desk and take me like a naughty Gryffindor, Professor?"  
  
Draco sniffed, appearing haughty. "And here I thought all of that unresolved sexual tension was just for me."  
  
"Only the terribly deluded would think that I would have anything to do with that foul, greasy git." Harry leaned in, wrapping his arms around Draco's frail waist and kissed along his jaw line. He tried not to think about how odd it was that Draco was _with_ Snape that way. The thought was repellant. The man had clearly taken advantage of Draco and dragged him into this situation that had left him at odds with the Ministry.   
  
Furthermore, he'd probably really killed Dumbledore in cold blood, but had Draco so twisted up with thoughts of-- "You're thinking about him right now, aren't you?" Draco huffed.  
  
"He wishes." He had to restrain himself from mauling Draco on the spot; perhaps thinking of Snape really was a good idea. Harry pulled back and looked over Draco's pallid face.   
  
"Don't flatter yourself. He got someone much prettier than you."   
  
Harry had a hard time determining whether Draco was teasing him or behaving like a jealous ex-lover. Either way, it ended his fascination with the Draco-as-vicar look, and Harry dropped his arms and stepped back. "You don't hear me complaining."   
  
Draco looked apologetic. Then he brushed past Harry to the living area. "Anyway, I need to sneak in and see if there's anyone I can Polyjuice into there. I'm entirely too pretty to just walk in like this. They'll know I'm not clergy right off."  
  
"You have Polyjuice?"  
  
"Oh yes, loads of it, and several glamour spells if I get stuck." Draco somehow managed to get paler, looking as if he'd said something he shouldn't have.   
  
Harry looked suspicious, but before he could say anything, Draco kissed him hard and toyed with the front of his pyjama pants. "I won't be gone long. I'm just going to nip down and be back quickly. This'll keep for me, right?"  
  
"I can go with you," Harry whispered, canting his hips into Draco's palm.   
  
"Only one cassock. Besides, they'll be looking for us together. It's minimal risk, I'm not even going to go in. If I can't get a proper sample outside of the church, then I'll just nick some Muggle's hair." Draco snuck his hand under the elastic and Harry's breath caught at the smooth but chilly hand gliding over his cock. He'd encircled it and twisted his wrist as he moved his hand up and down the shaft.  
  
"You said you were going undercover today..." Harry groaned and rested his weight against Draco.  
  
"I'm not ready yet, obviously. I need hair samples before I can do this. I promise you, this is just a short trip. I'll go in more fully next week."  
  
"Still sounds... risky... fuck." Resting his forehead against Draco's Harry tried not to be seduced into letting him go alone. He had just decided to return the favour to Draco to see how he liked having to make decisions with a brain drained of blood when he felt the flat of Draco's palm circling over the tip of his cock. Harry grabbed Draco's shoulders for balance at the flurry of feeling.  
  
"I am a risky fuck." Draco's breath was warm against Harry's ear, almost as effective as the two way massage on his cock.   
  
"I want to fuck you." Harry squeezed Draco's shoulders, and he tried to steer him to the bed, but Draco's footing was surer than his, so he simply leaned forward to avoid being moved.  
  
"I know you do, and I want you to... when I get back." Draco kissed Harry deeply, his hands speeding up, rolling the tip of his prick at the foot of his palm; his other hand pulled faster, reading Harry's whimpering pleas.   
  
Harry explored Draco's mouth, testing teeth, tasting the musky sweet of tea on his tongue. He huffed into Draco's mouth as he felt the stirring of his body, each nerve on edge, needing, wanting release. He opened his eyes, watching Draco's face, pinched with determination as he kept his motions consistent. The effort brought Harry off as much as that look did.   
  
He was relenting, caving to Draco's demands, but surrender felt sweet as his pyjama pants became warm and wet and stuck against him when Draco's hands shifted. Draco smirked at Harry in that cocksure way that nearly infuriated him into another erection. But Draco's hands were slowing and stilling and soon after were withdrawn altogether.   
  
Draco held up his sodden palm and after giving the sort of naughty look that would fuel wank fantasies for the rest of Harry's life, he cupped his tongue along his hand to scoop up as much of Harry as he could. He let his tongue linger a moment to show the full measure of come he'd licked up and then retracted it and swallowed.   
  
Harry was more than mesmerized by the performance and was about to comment when Draco lapped up another stripe. There was a moment of hard pressure on the back of his neck before Draco was again invading his mouth, this time swishing Harry's come freely. He was already twitching to get hard again, but Draco backed up and smirked as he grabbed a towel to clean his hands. "You won't even be recovered by the time I get back. That's how fast I'll be."  
  
Helplessly, Harry nodded and watched him go, debating whether to toss off while he was gone or to let Draco get him hard again when he got back. The second option sounded more fun.  
  
\--  
  
Draco hadn't been gone long when he heard a tapping at one of the windows. Peering outside, he saw the dull grey owl that the Ministry favoured for delivery. He opened the window after snatching some treats from the cupboard. Finally, word from Tonks. He broke the binding seal, and the magic recognised Harry and resolved to a proper letter.   
  
Harry,  
  
I have not been able to secure a face-to-face with Nott. He's been rather sketchy and difficult to get a hold of lately. He said he was going deep undercover, whatever that means. I realize it's futile to ask you again why you are so anxious to meet with him, but let me just say this; he is one of the good guys, Harry. I know you've had your doubts when people have said this to you, but whatever happened to him in the Death Eaters really changed him.   
  
Hope that helps,  
Tonks  
  
Harry had to pause to roll his eyes. Yes, changed him from alive to dead. Glancing the rest of the pro-Nott missive, he set it aside to think. Something was niggling at him, creeping in on the corners of his consciousness. He thought about Draco's admission to having Polyjuice just moments before. But how would that help, really? To use Polyjuice, you had to have hairs from the person you were going to turn into. He and Ron hadn't left bits of Nott around, and besides, no one knew that Nott was dead but them. Still, he had a gut feeling, and those... were often wrong, but were nearly always worth investigating.  
  
Feeding the owl another treat to keep it there, he wrote Tonks back asking her to meet him for lunch at the deli they'd gone to before. It would mean putting off his sexcapade with Draco for an hour or so, but he rationalized that Draco would need rest after his adventure anyway. Draco would keep, but Harry promised himself to keep this meeting with Tonks as brief as possible.   
  
\--  
  
  
"Oi, you're rather knives out today, aren't you Harry?" Tonks toyed with her salad. Her hair was a brilliant blood-orange red, but fell to her shoulders in an otherwise unremarkable hairdo.   
  
"It just doesn't add up." Harry blew on his soup and then took a bite.   
  
"You just have to see it from the Ministry's perspective. Malfoy did give us loads of key information regarding who was and was not a Death Eater; he refused to cooperate when it came to Snape."  
  
"But isn't it throwing the baby out with the bathwater to believe him on all counts by one? To allow that to keep him from employment? Or believability?"   
  
Tonks speared some lettuce and brought it to her mouth but then dropped it again. "Harry, Snape killed Dumbledore. That little fact alone has been enough to get you arsed off enough to leave the room when it was brought up in the past. It still gets certain members of the Ministry riled, and that's why Malfoy has no viability within it. Whatever reasons Malfoy has for not testifying against him just don't fly there. I wouldn't think it would fly with you, either. We all hate that Snape's not only gotten away with it, but has now taken over Hogwarts. I think many people blame Malfoy for that happening. I know you did in the past, too. What happened?"  
  
Setting down his spoon, Harry furrowed his brows. "All right, I'm not saying that he made the right choice. But if he has evidence of another dark uprising, I don't understand why the Ministry would ignore it just because it came from Malfoy."  
  
"Because the Ministry doesn't understand why he'd go from disinterest in justice when it comes to Dumbledore's murder to wanting to save Muggles-- he would have nothing to gain by doing that sort of detective work."  
  
Harry perked a brow. "And Nott does?"   
  
"Nott is hoping to mitigate his war crimes and avoid time in Azkaban. The Ministry understands that reasoning. Sudden altruism coming from the man keeping secrets about a cold-blooded murderer is a harder sell." Since Harry fell silent, Tonks picked her fork up and dug into the salad again.  
  
"It doesn't strike you as odd that Malfoy came to you with this same information first?" Harry continued with his soup slowly as he worked this out in his head, the same information from two dark wizards, the email to Tonks that Draco tried to blow off...   
  
"The Notts and Malfoys were on par with one another. Family friends. Maybe Malfoy shared the information with Nott and Nott saw a way to use it to his advantage." She shrugged.  
  
 _Except that Theodore Nott is dead_. "That's all well and good, family friends and such, but answer me this, why would Malfoy tell Nott about it if he weren't concerned? And why would he bother gathering the information in the first place if it wasn't to his advantage?"  
  
Tonks paused and furrowed her brows. "I... don't know."  
  
At least now Harry knew _why_ Draco was transforming into Nott to do this. Now it just became a matter of how he managed it since Nott was long gone.  
  
\--  
  
Harry decided to walk most of the way back to Draco's flat, mulling what he'd learned and just what he was going to say about it. It hurt that Draco hadn't trusted enough to tell him what he was up to with being Nott, but then, he kept circling back to how it didn't seem to matter.  
  
He was no stranger to how ineffectual the Ministry was, but a church full of zombified Muggles seemed pretty compelling. Yet, beyond assigning Tonks to take the information, they didn't appear to be interested.   
  
He was no stranger to how easy it was to bribe Ministry officials either.  
  
While the matter of Polyjuice was easy enough, what stuck in Harry's mind, what he intended to ask Draco, was how he was getting hair for the potion. It might require him revealing just how dead he knew Nott to be-- unless he wasn't. Outside of Ron murdering someone else who was using the potion, he didn't see how it was possible.   
  
But then, Nott was missing pretty much from that day on. Could Nott have been so wily as to allow someone else to become him for that short time and then remained consistently hidden since then? Sadly, Harry couldn't remember that much about Nott to know if he was even capable of such sophisticated deception. Nott was truly undistinguished when it came to schooldays. Only Draco could answer that question.  
  
That one and how he managed to change from Nott to himself so quickly in the club bathroom. Was Nott alive and doubling with him sometimes, or did the potion wear off at a lucky moment? Then again, given the shock of what he saw and how overwrought he'd been at Draco shagging someone else, he couldn't say for certain that he'd looked hard enough to detect glamours.   
  
Yes, he had loads of questions for Draco, and he wasn't going to allow him to slip out of answering this time.  
  
Harry burst into Draco's flat and shouted for him. There was no acrid scent of bile, so at least he wasn't sick. He was pleased that he would be able to give Draco a proper questioning, even if he had to wake him.  
  
Except that Draco wasn't in his bed, nor was he at his computer, in the kitchen or the bathroom. The flat looked untouched since he'd left it to talk to Tonks. No food was missing as far as he could tell. Harry checked the linen closet in the bathroom and felt something curdle in his stomach. His potions were all there, including a fresh row of Polyjuice. Wherever Draco was detained, he obviously hadn't meant to be gone this long.   
  
He stared at the closed door. Draco had gone to the church to pluck a hair from an Inferi. He'd gone to the church for a quick trip that theoretically shouldn't have taken more than a couple of hours and he still wasn't back. Throwing open the door again, he grabbed as many of his curative potions, praying that Draco was still alive to take them. He left some in the closet in case he was overreacting and Draco would be home soon. He shoved them into his right pocket and then a few Polyjuice potions into his left in case he could infiltrate the church.  
  
Draco had left in the cassock. No matter, he'd deal with a disguise when and if it came to that. He was still a decent dueler (he hoped) and could probably force his way out if he had to. Harry was going to find out where Draco was, and if someone had taken his life prematurely, they would pay. He shoved out the door, slamming and hexing it shut.


	9. Chapter 9

The night air had a chill wind, and even with the light spilling out from the church and the bodies pouring out of it, the building seemed dead, somehow devoid of anything human. But there was something human in there. Draco was in there with whatever manner of beings that would bind and keep a congregation of zombies. No, Draco would be the only human there.   
  
Harry hated having to wait, to watch until everyone was gone. He wanted to burst into the vestibule to knock over the fake holy water and hex the stone building to his foundation until he got what he wanted, but he knew from his time at war that while such grand gestures were brave, they were almost always pointless. It took a few years for him to understand why the Sorting Hat wanted to put him in Slytherin, and it had little to do with Tom Riddle. Once he'd learned to rely on his cunning instincts more than his dumb luck, things changed for him. He hoped that that lesson would serve him well now.  
  
Perched in the shadows in the crook of a building across the way, a Disillusionment charm made him nearly impossible to find. The lights all went out but for the front lights-- now was his chance to do or die. He was partway across the street when he paused, something nagging at the back of his mind. Pushing his glasses up, he again scanned the front of the building, greeted only by silence and the ominous darkness inside. Above the double doors stood a giant backlit crucifix; Jesus stared down at him blank eyed and miserable, reminding him eerily of an Inferi.   
  
He stared back at the figure for a long while. Was there always a crucifix there, or was this a trick? Was it actually a martyred Inferi watching for him? That's when the realization dawned on him, what nagged him shot to the forefront. _No one was watching the front door_.   
  
Paranoia about the messiah-spy excluded, it was passing strange that these people, whomever they were, had kidnapped and perhaps done away with Draco knowing that Harry had been with him the last time, and weren't obviously watching for him. Unless they were, of course-- he wasn't the only wizard privy to the Disillusionment charm.   
  
Slowly Harry backed up into the cold shadows of the building he'd been hiding against, feeling impotent. If he went into the church and was attacked and slaughtered, then he and Draco would have died and nothing would be done. The Ministry was clearly not interested in solving this, even Tonks seemed blasÃ© about the massacre. Then again, the war had worn her down as well as everyone else. Perhaps after so many years at the Ministry and the passing of youth, righteous indignation stagnates into tolerance. Fighting the system was a game for the young, the heartened and perhaps the dying who had nothing to lose.   
  
Harry closed his eyes and mentally scanned his resources. He'd been such a recluse for the past few years; he didn't think he had any. He could go to the _Daily Prophet_ , but aside from the notion that people there were likely paid off as well, the printing of the information would get Draco killed, if he wasn't already dead. Who would care if Draco died besides him? It was a dubious honor and distinction to be the only one who would mourn him. No, that wasn't true; Ursius would mourn him and perhaps Millicent in her way.   
  
Just as he was beginning to give up hope, he remembered Snape. While he couldn't imagine Snape doing anything to benefit him, he wouldn't want to see Draco dead. If he was willing to let Draco die, he wouldn't have been making him potions. Harry winced at the thought of his last confrontation with Snape, but he had to focus on getting to Draco and getting him out of there. Pride be damned, Harry needed Draco back.  
  
\--  
  
"You silly fool. I tried to tell you that you were meddling where you should not be, but you didn't listen, you never listen." It was as if Snape had been expecting Harry to Apparate outside of the Hogwarts gates. Harry had seen little other than a flash of house-elf before the huge doors to Hogwarts castle opened and Snape's cape billowed as he dashed out to let him in. They didn't speak a word until they were in the security of the headmaster's office.   
  
Harry couldn't meet Snape's eyes. "You didn't warn me about _this_. You were trying to warn me off of _Draco_."  
  
"No." Snape raised his hand rather than his voice to quiet Harry before he could object. "Your mind was in the gutter."  
  
"You've taken advantage of him before, when he was younger. He said that you were his first." Removing his glasses, he rubbed them in his cloak, pretending to clean them so as not to have to face Snape's stony glare directly. He didn't want to have this conversation right now; it was completely beyond the point. Draco could still be alive, and no matter whom he ended up with, being alive was the priority.  
  
"Is that what he told you? That I took advantage of him? Or is that another of your _assumptions_?" Snape leaned forward, nearing almost close enough for Harry to see clearly without aid. It made him uncomfortable and he slid his chair back a few inches.   
  
"You were his teacher, an authority figure to someone who was of age to be your son. I don't see how you could call it anything other than abuse." Since it was pointless to keep the charade of his missing glasses up, he shoved them back onto his face.   
  
In response, Snape sat back in his chair. "Then it is your assumption that it was I who initiated a sexual relationship. Again, you are wrong."  
  
"This is beside the point!" Harry sputtered. He could feel his insides twisting at how badly he'd misjudged this situation. Draco initiated the sex-- not that it mattered, as Snape was still older and wiser and should have known better. "The point is-- he's missing _now_. Do you know where he is?"  
  
"It isn't beside the point if you're going to continue questioning what I tell you because of it. You seem to be operating under the delusion that I want Draco for myself. There is nothing further from the truth. The physical portion of what happened between us only happened once in a moment of weakness. I tell you this not because it is any of your business, but because it is the most efficient means of getting past this. I love Draco deeply, but I am uncomfortable with that manner of expression with anyone, in particular another man." Snape's eyes bored into Harry's, but Harry knew enough to keep his defenses up, even if what he heard shocked him.   
  
"Oh. You're not... gay?"   
  
"That would be the obvious conclusion, yes." Severus shifted, but maintained eye contact.  
  
This news was surprising. No, surprising was an understatement. "Then why did you..."  
  
"As I said before, I love him deeply and it was a moment of weakness."  
  
Harry exhaled slowly, trying to gather his wits and avoid the thought that if he'd listened or perhaps _asked_ , Draco's vanishing could've been avoided.   
  
"He is headstrong, Potter. He would have attempted his work undercover either way. He sees himself as expendable in this equation because of his death sentence."   
  
The statement seemed out of nowhere, but Harry quickly realized he'd let his defenses down while staring Snape in the eye and had been read. At least Snape wasn't raking him over the coals over his mistake. Not yet, anyway. "Thank you for not..."  
  
"It would be unproductive to dwell on blame, particularly when the one who deserves it is the one who needs our help." Snape stood and started to pace in the way that Harry remembered Dumbledore doing.   
  
Instinctively at the recollection, Harry looked up to the portrait of Dumbledore and back to the desk again. All of his righteous indignation over Snape being a murderer and he was chucking it away to work with the man in the hopes of getting Draco back. He was ashamed of himself, especially for judging Tonks so harshly; she was just trying to keep her job. Even if he wanted to pursue his righteous indignation, he wasn't in a position to prosecute Snape. But, as long as they were getting confessions out of the way, "Draco didn't seem positive that your murdering Dumbledore was prearranged."  
  
The speed in which Snape whirled around was almost as alarming as the fierce glower that came with it. Harry stood ready to defend himself, but Snape never pulled his wand. After a beat, Snape gained control of his expression and his nerve steeled over. "He's not certain because I couldn't give him a clear answer. Not even I know if that's what Albus was asking me to do."  
  
Snape appeared pained, while Harry tried to sort out what that meant. "He was pleading with you not to do it."  
  
"Potter, Albus knew that if I didn't kill him, it would be the end of Draco. He was old and in pain. He'd been saying he was ready to die for months. I had a split second to decide what his pleading meant. I made my choice. I believe that's what he wanted." Snape gestured up to Dumbledore's portrait. "It's what he says now."  
  
Dumbledore's portrait twinkled down at Harry and gave him an impish wink. Harry nodded as if that were some sort of answer and sat back down in defeat. So many of his assumptions had been entirely off-base, but then they often had when it came to Snape and Draco. Sitting in this chair again, in this office, he suddenly felt 11-years-old and out of his league. "How do we get Draco back?"  
  
Taking his seat across the desk from Harry, Snape closed his eyes a moment and when he opened them, appeared back to his proscribed self. "I'm not sure what Draco has told me has been accurate. I need you to tell me everything you know, in as minute detail as you are able to remember."  
  
Snape took notes during the conversation, his expression more grave and complexion ashen with each revelation. The one look Harry never saw flit across Snape's visage was one of surprise.   
  
The idea that he was repeating things that Snape already knew was vexing-- he wanted to get to the bottom of this. "Stop me if you've heard this one." Harry cast a glance over Snape's desk, eyes resting on the spine of a closed tome. _Raising the Dead: Principles of Creating Inferi and Maintaining--_ the book was snatched away before he could finish reading it, but he'd gotten the gist. "You were trying to warn me, which means you know something. You're in the middle of this, aren't you?"  
  
Snape's tongue created a lump under his lips as he appeared to be trying to work something from between his teeth. He exhaled slowly and put the book in question onto the center of his desk. Harry knew it was about Inferi, he didn't need to reread the cover. "If you dig deeply enough into that church and what is going on there, you will find my name attached in the beginning." He stopped speaking and stood, jostling the wooden chair against the stone floor. Each step echoed in the looming silence before Snape's loud inhale.   
  
"What it has become is... fanaticism that is beyond my comprehension. It is the result of desperate people who-- well, let us start with the original desperate person." Snape stopped in front of the portrait of Dumbledore, his long, calloused hand pressed against his chest. The men shared a long stare. Dumbledore appeared terribly sad, but nodded to Snape to continue.   
  
Snape returned to his desk and sat, inhaling slowly. "In Draco's sixth year, I made an Unbreakable Vow to protect him from a certain situation resulting in...." Snape gestured back to the portrait without looking at it.   
  
"Though the vow was fulfilled through my actions, I have seen it since as my duty to protect Draco as best I could ever since." He turned and again stared at Dumbledore's portrait, then his eyes fell. "Someone needed to, and I believe-- I hope that was what was intended."  
  
Harry leaned forward, eyes darting between Snape and Dumbledore. He tried to piece together these fragments, but he couldn't fathom how a church full of Inferi was protecting Draco, and if it were, why they kidnapped him.   
  
"Draco and I lost touch for a few years. The war took its toll on everyone in its own way. I'm certain that you can comprehend that. Then, Draco came to me with this virus. It being what it is-- a Muggle disease-- I was caught ignorant of a deadly threat to a boy I had sworn to protect." Snape paused again to collect his thoughts, no doubt trying to couch what he would say next in the best light possible.   
  
"I found the Muggle attempts at curing to be in disarray-- desperate and unorganized. They had no real control groups with which to experiment on, and... ghastly as it was, they were experimenting on their own people. They had no choice. They had pill cocktails that they hoped would work; they hoped were safe, but ultimately, they weren't positive and were hoping for the best. Or to at least ease the suffering. That's all I'm doing." Pressing his lips together, Snape nodded to himself and looked into Harry's eyes. "But you have to know that it wasn't meant to ever be what it is now. Someone has taken over what I'd started, which was meant to be a handful of people to test potions on before I gave them to Draco."  
  
"You killed them," Harry pronounced the verdict that Snape handily tap danced around.  
  
"It's what they do to their own people, Potter. I-- when it started, I was careful to choose only those who were HIV-positive. They had death sentences hanging over them anyway."  
  
"But _you_ killed them. You robbed them of what little life they might've been left with!" Harry stood, his glare brimming with righteousness.   
  
"They were already the walking dead. I just made it more literal. Besides, if I found a cure, then their lives would have been spent for a better cause." Snape held his position-- eyes focused and chin held high, but his words, in spite of their sharpness, came out dull.   
  
"Shouldn't they have been the ones to decide if they wanted to sacrifice themselves for the greater good?"  
  
Snape ran his hand through his receding hair. "At first I was under the impression that they were willing participants."  
  
"But you found out otherwise and didn't stop it?"   
  
Lowering his eyes, Snape nodded. "The potions were working and I didn't question it. I didn't question what the people I'd hired were doing when they took over the church, and I never asked why because Draco was feeling better and I thought I was on the right track. I just continued to make the potions necessary to keep the Inferi moving, fresh, life-like in greater quantities. I didn't question why until..."  
  
Harry rubbed his forehead, feeling the absence of his scar as if it were a surprise each time. "Until Draco started asking?" He pictured Draco tracking down his lover. It would make sense if Snape were telling the truth-- if Gavin had believed he'd infected Draco and believed that giving his life would save Draco, he would have done so willingly. That is, if Gavin were anything like Harry, he liked to imagine he was. But Snape could hardly tell Draco that he'd killed his lover to experiment on him, so he'd have to distance himself from the church. The distancing led to an outside element being able to take over.   
  
Snape nodded and cleared his throat. "When I started to look into it more I was promoted to headmaster, more to shut me up and keep me busy than anything else." He rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration. "They wouldn't kill him, they know that would set them at odds with me and I could pull the plug. At the very least, he's probably getting his potions."  
  
Harry closed his eyes. He was tired, so tired of this, so tired of Slytherin rationalization, of trying to glean the truth from slippery people, and most of all tired of Dumbledore on mute. Why wasn't he speaking? Harry to be told what the right side was, what the right thing to do was. The war, as horrid as it was, at least had a definite sense of right and wrong. When he opened his eyes, he was glaring at Dumbledore again, but still the portrait said nothing. Harry eyed Snape again with something less than accusation but more than defeat and questioned, "Then why keep him?" The pieces were falling into place, but not nearly enough that he had the full picture. With each new revelation, his plan to barge in and yank Draco out of there seemed sophomoric, but he was at a loss as to how else to approach the situation even with this new information.  
  
"I can't imagine any other purpose than to draw you in to rescue him. They-- whoever they are-- must want you for some reason." Snape, back at his desk, traced his fingers over the leather cover of the necromancy book.   
  
"So I should go to him." Harry headed for the door.  
  
Snape hexed it before he reached it. "It's a trap, did you miss that part?"  
  
"They won't harm him, but that doesn't mean I'm going to just leave him there." Harry pressed his hand to the door, imagining Draco on the other side, getting to touch him again, to feel him next to him, even if it was just for a minute before his captors sprung their trap. It would be worth it.   
  
"No. Or at least, not alone. This is my doing, and it's about time I found out what is going on." Snape crossed to Harry, but did not get so close as to touch.  
  
Harry felt Snape behind him, he could hear the labored breathing, but was surprised at the quiet sniff. Whirling around, he found Snape's face impassive, but his eyes were more bloodshot than usual. He regarded the seriousness of his face and then nodded slowly. "All right."  
  
"Good. I seem to remember you having some manner of clothing that allowed you to elude me with your invisibility. Bring that. I do not think they will be entirely surprised to see me; hopefully they will allow me in with little fuss. If not, then I hope you have not allowed your dueling skills to atrophy."  
  
It seemed brute force for a Slytherin plan, but Harry accepted it as being the fastest way to get inside. He was comforted that Draco probably wasn't being physically harmed, but given that even Snape had no idea who Draco was being held by, he still felt a sense of urgency. Harry patted Snape's shoulder, feeling some measure of sympathy, although he wasn't ready to forgive him just yet. Movement caught his eye and he found himself again staring into Dumbledore's twinkling eyes. He was smiling and nodding at Harry. At least someone appeared confident.   
  
Harry's stomach twisted with each pat. Something niggled at him, a stray thought that he was forgetting something; that something was off here. This was going to end badly. Closing his eyes, he imagined Draco, so frail laying on the bed, lesions that he tried to cover using what little magic he had that wasn't fighting the disease to sate his vanity. The way that he'd weakly smile at Harry from the lip of the toilet, trying to show it was all right, that he was stronger than this because he didn't want Harry to worry or fuss over him. The soft apologies in the night for not being whole, not being what he should for him and holding Draco trembling under the covers, freezing in balmy heat-- Harry needed him back no matter what the cost.


	10. Chapter 10

Again Harry found himself in the dark entryway to the church standing before a lidless messiah, staring blankly at him. Only this time he wasn't to be seen, nor was he alone. Under the cover of his Invisibility Cloak and standing adjacent to Snape, he tried to remain as still as he could in the windless alcove, afraid that any superfluous rustle of fabric would give him away.  
  
The stiff Christ-head turned with a long, hollow creak, turning back and forth to peer around where Snape stood; its face a portrait of benevolent blankness as it fell back into place.   
  
"Severussss," it hissed. "Sssso lovely to sssseeeee you."  
  
From his position, Harry couldn't see Snape's expression through the curtain of black hair that left only the tip of his nose visible.   
  
"Let me in."  
  
"Oooooof courssssse," it replied, rasping like an asthmatic old hag.   
  
There was a strange grinding noise followed by what sounded like the chorus of a thousand crystal glasses being struck. Then the tall oak doors of the church opened to a near-dark vestibule with select torches lit-- just enough to cut the tenebrous gloom.   
  
It was good that Harry had tucked in close behind Snape, as the doors slammed shut immediately after he'd entered. After a moment, Harry's eyes adjusted. Snape's must have worked faster as he was a fair few paces ahead of Harry, rounding the corner into the main church area. Harry repressed the urge to shout for Snape to slow down and instead tried to move as quickly and silently as he could.   
  
Once around the corner in a side aisle, he could see a bright light emanating from the area behind the stage, where the priests usually came from. Snape was heading towards it at a good clip, but Harry started to slow, feeling a sick sense of deja vu that took him back to fourth year. Not him, but an older man heading towards he knew not what only to be confronted with a flash of green.   
  
"Severus!"   
  
The voice was startled and plaintive and highly recognizable. Draco! Draco was there, and Harry only had to get to him.  
  
"Draco, what is going--"   
  
Snape had only gotten those words out when he was greeted by a flash of orange that threw him back against the pews and into a heap of unconsciousness.   
  
"What did you do, you fool? We need him to make the potions!" a voice that worked hard to sound masculine drawled.  
  
There was another flash of color and Harry heard the hollow thud of a head hitting stone floor. Harry prayed it wasn't Draco as he pressed against the wall and started to inch forward, holding his breath to keep from making noise in the sanctuary. In spite of his best attempts, every breath sounded maddeningly loud, but only because the dead silence was frightening him.   
  
"Is he dead?"   
  
Draco's voice. Harry thanked whatever gods might be listening that he had not met his end.   
  
"Wouldn't you like to know?" the low voice grumbled.   
  
There was the sound of a chair creaking and sliding against stone, and then Draco grunted.   
  
"Doesn't matter, Harry will get in. He'll find me."   
  
The words heartened Harry and he regrouped and tip-toed further along the wall to the bright doorway. He paused in front of Snape, who appeared to be breathing, but in the dark it was hard to tell. If he was alive, his leg was definitely broken, as it poked out at a wrong angle, and his left shoulder appeared dislocated.   
  
Footsteps echoed from the adjoining room.   
  
"What you and Potter do is disgusting."  
  
Draco sounded tired. "Then don't watch."  
  
"It's unnatural."  
  
"I can assure you that it's a completely _organic_ interaction. Along with some other 'o' words that if you were a bit more acquainted with, you likely wouldn't care what I do with Potter."  
  
After a long silence with more impatient and irregular footsteps, there was a loud smack and the chair creaked again and skidded against the stone.   
  
"A heretic's tongue is blessed by Satan. You believe yourself witty, but you are not. You are a filthy, vile corruptor"  
  
"Blessed by Satan, am I? Yet, I'm the one tied to the chair being tortured while you prance around like a minge. I'm pretty sure the Prince of Darkness could do better for a minion, but then, if you're all _God is_ sending out..."   
  
Harry closed his eyes, anticipating the next harsh meaty sound of a slap that came with surprising swiftness. Historically Draco never knew when to keep his mouth shut. Harry had hoped he would've grown out of it, but it would seem that he hadn't.   
  
"Silly ickle Draco, you have no idea what you're talking about, no clue as to the powers that you are dealing with."   
  
Footsteps echoed again, stalking around Draco. Harry inched further down the wall, wanting to get closer, needing to see for himself. The voice was masculine and familiar, but off in some way he couldn't place.  
  
"I don't think you have any idea what you're dealing with either. Christ, antichrist, do you really think you-- with your congregation of the dead-- are on the right side?"  
  
"I'm on the side of good, on the side of God and miracles. Please, Draco, you along with every true pureblood knows of the divinity by which we are blessed with magic. We are God's people, a miraculous people. Those with magic are made in His image, are reflections of His glory and His power. These silly Muggles read the books, but they do not _comprehend_. They do not understand that when hands are laid on the sick and they are healed it is because _we_ do it; those with the magic."  
  
"Thou shalt not kill; I don't think it can be any plainer," Draco replied.  
  
Harry peeked around the doorframe and saw Draco for the first time, his face mottled with bruising and scattered blood. His lazy eye was disturbingly turned towards Harry and he ducked back before remembering that he was invisible, or should be.   
  
"These murders are to glorify his name; they are to bring him back. We will pile the sinning souls to heaven to bring him back and he will use their broken soulless bodies as stair steps to Earth and then he will continue on with his noble work."   
  
Harry crept around to peek again, wondering if it was possible that this lunatic had taken "Stairway to Heaven" literally. This time the man was facing the door-- Lucius Malfoy, but it wasn't. It couldn't have been. Lucius Malfoy was Kissed and finishing out his years in Azkaban. There was no coming back from that.  
  
"That's _not_ how Jesus is returning, I don't care how you twist scripture."  
  
Lucius laughed, his head thrown back in a pious cackle. "Oh sweet ickle boy, is that really what you think this has all been about? Proverbs and stories you tell Muggle children to make them behave? The messiah isn't Jesus; he was a false prophet, no son of God! Just some altruistic idiot who got what he deserved. Maybe toward the end he actually believed it. Who knows?"  
  
A faint glimmer of what could've been recognition registered on Draco's face before his eyes narrowed. "If you're not talking about Jesus then... are you talking about Tom Riddle? Voldemort? He's no messiah, he's not even a _pureblood_ , he's nothing, just some half--"  
  
The slap came so fast and so hard that Harry only heard the smack and watched Draco's head turn with it. Somewhere along the line, Draco had learned to take a hit, to roll his body with the inertia to make it hurt less. Harry hated that he'd had to acquire that kind of knowledge, but he wasn't surprised.   
  
"Shut your insolent little mouth. Whatever vessel he was forced to arrive in, Lord Voldemort was, _is_ the way, the truth-- the magical truth-- and the light. Muggles have no magic, no power, nothing that brings them closer to the Supreme Being as we are. Jesus was nothing special, just a rogue Wizard who tricked them with simple magic that they assumed were miracles."  
  
Draco looked up at Lucius with a pitying expression. "You sound as crazy as my aunt."  
  
Another hard slap and now Draco's face was pointed in Harry's direction. He looked so tired, but there was the underpinning of determination in his eyes. "Your aunt is a good woman who taught you Occlumency, you ungrateful little brat."  
  
"She was a woman who lost her mind in Azkaban, who should've died in the war." Draco looked up at Lucius, his face puffy but steely.  
  
Lucius was furious; he pointed his wand at Draco's face, flicking it in a calculating manner. Harry fretted that he was casting a silent spell, but he realized that the movement seemed to be counting-- counting ten-- controlling his anger. He kept his wand out, but his stance was less intrusive.   
  
"Funny, I would have thought Potter would have burst in on our little party by now. He must not love you as much as we all think."  
  
The doubt that flitted over Draco's face made Harry ache to reassure him, but with Lucius's wand still trained on Draco, he couldn't risk it. Draco dropped the stare and looked at his lap in defeat as he wriggled his wrists against the bonds.   
  
"I'm dying anyway. He's probably doing the smart thing for once."  
  
"Not very noble of him, is it? He really must have changed. No matter." Lucius flourished his wand artfully. "Did you know that AIDS not only attacks your human immune system, but also your magical immune system?"  
  
Draco sighed. "I believe I read that somewhere."  
  
"So a virulent virus or curse... would hasten your end."  
  
"What? I'm going to die? Hold me, I'm scared."  
  
Draco's delivery was flat, toneless, but he clocked the wand floating before him.  
  
"And all of that suffering, it would take time for you to die, of course... your magic and your body wasting and dwindling away. It would be time that Potter would spend at your death bed while we moved ourselves to a more hospitable location. It was my second choice for ending this, seeing as you're _my son_ and all. I had hoped to be more merciful."   
  
"Oh, give it up, Bellatrix. Your impression of my father was always shite."  
  
Harry didn't hear what curse she spoke, as he shouted his own charm, " _Protego_!"   
  
The cloak spilled off of him and rustled to the floor, leaving his hair wild with static and his glasses askew. He held firm in the doorway, but poised to spring into action again.  
  
At Harry's dramatic entrance, Bellatrix-as-Lucius balked, then stared and then laughed. "Mr Potter, so nice of you to join us. I had the feeling you might be lurking around here somewhere. Severus was many things, but he's never been the bravest man. You were right, Draco, your hero has arrived."  
  
" _Expelliarmus_!"  
  
Bellatrix twirled, her pale Lucius-hair and dark cloak swirling around her, blocking the spell with her body. "Don't be silly, Potter. Do you think I'd get you all the way here only to let you disarm me?"   
  
Though Bellatrix was now shrinking, she didn't seem to notice it. Her formerly platinum hair darkened to black as the Polyjuice faded and her height deteriorated by several inches. Soon she was little other than an old, skeletal shrew with huge robes dragging on the floor and hanging off of her frail shoulders, holding her wand out in a shriveled hand.   
  
The chair Draco was in squalled at Draco's forceful yanks as he tried to free himself. Harry dearly wanted to untie him, but he couldn't run the risk of letting Bellatrix out of his sights.   
  
"So just why _did_ you want me here?"  
  
"Your blood and your soul, Potter. You were who defeated him. Surely it must be your blood and soul that will be the final key to unlocking him. You would bring him back!"   
  
She brandished her wand and Harry shielded himself from her nonverbal spell.   
  
"If you'd just asked, I could've saved you a lot of time, Bellatrix. No matter what you've convinced yourself of with this nonsense, I destroyed Voldemort utterly. He's gone. I destroyed each part of his fragmented soul and there is _no way_ to bring him back." He paced along with her in this defensive dance, trying to get himself closer to Draco. Even if he could just touch him, he'd feel that much better. "He's gone. Forever."  
  
"You don't know anything, you stupid man. You never understood the old ways, the old magic!"   
  
Bellatrix ranted as she headed towards Draco, sensing that was where Harry was headed.  
  
Draco growled and gave a final pull at his bindings before flopping against the chair.   
  
"Hush up, you batty old hag. You know what Potter says is true."  
  
"He's coming back, he is!" she shrieked.   
  
Bellatrix backhanded Draco, which gave Harry enough time to cast a Binding Spell at them.   
  
Before it reached its intended destination, Bellatrix had grabbed Draco and Disapparated. Because she had managed to focus on bringing just Draco with her, she left the chair rattling on its hind legs until it finally fell back against the stone floor.  
  
Immediately, Harry cast a tracing spell, praying that the trail of magic would be strong enough to follow. He had two things going for him: one, that it was a Side-Along Apparition, which took more magic, and two, she'd had to also sever Draco from the chair.   
  
During the war, Harry had managed riskier traces on less magic than this.  
  
His wand twitched, like a fishing pole that had caught a bite, and quickly Harry was pulled into the middle of a crowded, dark forest with no discernable trails. Harry remained still, listening for movement, his eyes wide and scanning in near-futility as his eyes had not adjusted to the dark. The forest was mysteriously silent, as if holding its breath for something, or perhaps sensing the gravity and sheer magnitude of angry magic in its midst.  
  
After a moment, Harry's eyes had fully adjusted to the gloom, and he spied broken branches of bushes illuminated by a faint glow that Draco must have somehow managed to cast wandlessly out of sheer necessity. Harry followed through the foliage; it didn't take long for him to come upon a clearing that let out to a cliff where Bellatrix must have decided to make her last stand.  
  
" _Expelliarmus_!"  
  
A sick sense of failure twisted in Harry's chest as his wand flew from his hand towards Bellatrix. Her victorious screech was cut off by Draco leaping in front of her to grab Harry's wand from the air before she had a chance.   
  
Unwilling to give up her triumph so easily, she brandished her wand in Harry's direction before Draco could orient himself to threaten her. Harry dodged Bellatrix's, but just barely. Instead, it bypassed Harry and hit the tree behind him. A few large branches shook and then with the ticking precursor creak of branches breaking, they rained upon him, knocking Harry to the ground.  
  
For an instant, Harry felt like his leg was exposed to the elements, as if his trousers had torn away, but then in a blinding flash that nearly occluded his vision, he felt that searing pain of a deep wound. Harry's glasses had fallen off, but even with blurry vision, by the light of approaching dawn, he could see the fountain of blood pouring from a large hole on his inner thigh.   
  
His head pounded and his left arm felt numb and useless, as if it had fallen asleep. Again, Bellatrix's cackle of victory echoed over the vast, open bluff. He wanted nothing more than to ask Draco to Apparate them back to London and to forget this crazy bitch and her murderous zealotry. They could report her to the Ministry and they would take over. Surely the Ministry would have to pay attention now that the truth had been completely unraveled. Snape-- if he wasn't dead-- could back them up.  
  
Draco squinted down at Harry, the morning rays of hitting his ashen skin and dull, whitish hair lighting it up to a warm gold. For a brief moment, all Harry could think about was a scrap of a Muggle poem he'd read somewhere along the line in primary school.   
  
_Nothing gold can stay_.   
  
As Draco's hand reached Harry's face, he grabbed it, clutching desperately.   
  
"No."  
  
"I have to."  
  
"Stay."  
  
"I can't. You know I can't. Of all fucking people you know I can't."   
  
Draco eyed the deep gash on Harry's leg and winced before casting a clotting spell.  
  
"I'm the hero, I'm the fighter. Remember?" Harry asked.  
  
As far as convincing arguments went, Harry knew it was weak, but it was all that he had. Draco looked far too weak to go up against Bellatrix. She may well have been insane, but she was still powerful. By comparison, Draco appeared a gaunt wreck of lesions and fatigue.  
  
"You've had your apocalypse, Harry. This one is mine."   
  
Draco tugged his hand, trying to wrest it from Harry's grasp.  
  
"Wait!" Harry cried, squeezing his fingers tighter to keep him there.  
  
Harry smirked at Draco's affectionately exasperated look. Then the look faded into a softer one as the words he'd longed to say but didn't have a place for suddenly floated almost effortlessly from him.   
  
"I love you."  
  
Draco looked pained. His mouth flattened into a line and he blinked a few times before leaning in to kiss Harry deeply, one hand on the side of his face to hold him in place.   
  
Then Draco whispered, "You're such a fucking sap."   
  
That said, Draco dashed back into the clearing.   
  
"Bellatrix! There's no point in hiding. You've nowhere to run. You'll have to kill us both or else you'll be exposed and hunted down. In other words, 'come out, come out wherever you are,'" Draco said in a sing-songy voice. His arm was crossed over his chest with his wand stuck under his arm-- a common strategy to keep an adversary from summoning the wand.  
  
The wind whipped Draco's hair in long tendrils spiraling skyward. It lashed over his face leaving inscrutable paths of pink over his sallow face.   
  
Bellatrix sauntered out like a coy lover from behind a large tree, her hands behind her back, tapered fingers grasping her wand tightly.  
  
Eyes unblinkingly on her, Draco's wand hand tensed and he drew his wand upon her.  
  
Her wand flicked, but she didn't utter a word. Instead, her face was focused, her gaze keen with concentration. A sapphire glow emanated from her wand, and shot sharply to Draco's chest.  
  
Draco parried with a Blocking Spell, the sapphire luminescence glowed violet against the white shield. He mouthed his spells to reinforce them, but stopped, presumably because Bellatrix was reading his lips. She had been blocking the spells he cast a little too well. It was the only explanation.  
  
Then he started mouthing something else.   
  
Something that looked much like, "Fuck you, bitch."  
  
"I taught you these tricks, remember boy?" she called to him.   
  
"Back when Voldemort was alive? Before Harry Potter destroyed his soul, bit-by-bit? It's over, Bellatrix. He's not coming back." Draco jumped, narrowly avoiding a Stunning Spell before regaining his footing to send off a hex of his own.  
  
Her long, stringy hair flailed about her face, caught by the crosswind created by the sheer force of the soaring spells. Eyes watery and red-rimmed, Bellatrix worked to remain fixed on Draco, but demoralized by the realization of the simple truth-- Draco was right. Voldemort wasn't coming back.  
  
"Shut your fucking gob."  
  
He responded with a sneer and a green beam of light. Bellatrix's eyes widened as she blocked and skidded back; only just catching her balance against a large tree.   
  
Draco advanced, his face contorted into a resolute grimace.   
  
"I taught you that one, too," she hissed. "You would kill your family? Your own blood? Knowing the fury that could be unleashed?" Bellatrix aimed and a cutting, purple light radiated from her wand.   
  
Draco turned to the side, but it caught his arm. His hand slapped over it, catching the blood. Throwing the fluid into her face, he spat, "You shed the first blood. Our family line means just as little to you as it does to me. _Protego!_ "   
  
Their battle returned to virtual silence, their wands blurring and radiating a rainbow of sparks and extravagant light as hexes were cast and repelled. Draco dodged and advanced while Bella swirled and hexed in an elaborate dance.   
  
"You forget that I was the teacher, Draco."  
  
With a loud crack, Draco Disapparated.   
  
Swirling around with a loud, "Aha!" Bellatrix hexed the air behind her as Draco appeared in the same the spot he'd started in-- an obvious fake-out gambit that resulted in Bellatrix with her back to Draco.   
  
"And you forgot that I cheat, Auntie Bella."   
  
Draco's wand flicked as he cast the Killing Curse. The angry green light surrounded Bellatrix and she crumpled to her knees. Her scream was of terror and frustration, but she was not yet finished and her wand swished purposefully as she quieted to concentrate.   
  
A fine mist hissed from her body.   
  
Draco worked fast. Pointing his wand at Harry, he shouted, " _Mobilicorpus!_ " and sent Harry flying meters away to bang against a copse of trees.   
  
Harry tried to grab onto something to ease his landing, but he was pretty sure he heard another of his own bones snap against a tree before everything went dark.   
  
\--  
  
Draco closed his eyes, trying not to breathe, and Apparated to Harry. It was too late for Draco; the deadly mist that Bellatrix had emitted had touched him.  
  
But he had kept it from Harry, and that was all that mattered.  
  
A fag dies so that another may live. No, it wasn't even poetic, really. Especially since Draco wasn't giving up anything that wasn't going to be taken from him eventually. He just wished that he'd had more time with Harry. Even if he would have cocked it all up, at least it would've been them. At least they could have _tried_.  
  
Dragging Harry against his chest, he cradled him in his arms and watched as Bellatrix's corpse deflated. Soon there was nothing left of her but ash that picked up in the wind and blew away.   
  
Draco kissed Harry's forehead, not sure how much time he had left. He wished Harry were awake so that he could say a proper goodbye, but if this was it, then Harry was just going to have to find it in his heart to forgive him. Under the glow of the bright morning sun, Draco closed his eyes and leaned against the tree, and used the last bit of magic he had left to Apparate them to St. Mungo's.


	11. Chapter 11

Judging by the date on the _Daily Prophet_ , Harry had been out for a couple of days. Upon awakening in the Mending Ward of St. Mungo's, he found that his arm was healed and obviously he was no longer spewing blood from his thigh. He was, for all intents and purposes, well again.   
  
"Good morning, Mr Potter!" the Healer's voice chirped. "Good to see you awake. You should be all healed." She leaned in and looked into Harry's eyes, her wand moving from one to the other. "Just a bit groggy yet, yes?"  
  
Harry nodded before croaking, "Yes."  
  
"I expect that should clear up in the next couple of hours and you will be right as rain. Nasty piece of work, that Omichl Corporus hex is, but the mist appears not to have touched you. You're very lucky."  
  
The mist. The attack. Draco.   
  
Reaching out for the Healer's hand, Harry looked urgently into her wide-brown eyes. She was a large woman, with brown ringlets that curled down her back, and she looked quite surprised by how hard Harry was holding her arm.   
  
"Draco?" asked Harry, his throat rather sore for words. "Is he dead?"  
  
She conjured a glass of water with a straw on the stand next to him and picked it up to hand it to him. The pointed look on her face said that she would not speak until Harry started to drink.  
  
"Your friend is still alive, Mr Potter, but only just."  
  
Harry yanked his covers back and planted his feet on the floor. He made to stand, but his legs started to give.   
  
The Healer pushed him back. "There is still time, Mr Potter. The mist is rather insidious in that it takes its time so that the victim might feel the full measure of the weight of death closing in on him. Many Death Eaters rigged themselves with the ability to cast it post-mortem as a means of vengeance on the witch or wizard that ended them. It is rare and occasionally reversible, but I'm afraid that given the complications with his disease... well, we can keep him from feeling the pain."  
  
He knew about the spell that some Death Eaters cast and the painful effects of it. Voldemort had used it as a backlash and the pain had been excruciating. Harry had been young and healthy, however, and Draco was not. "Need to see him," he rasped.  
  
"I'll get you a potion to rejuvenate you as quickly as possible, but stay right there. I'll see that you have something to wear as well. He is not awake, but he will wake soon."  
  
Harry reached for his glasses, but came up empty.   
  
"I'm afraid those were crushed. They're working on a new pair for you downstairs. I'll see how they're doing." The Healer leaned in and Harry resolved the name on her badge. Emma.   
  
"Thank you, Emma," he said. "But I need to see him."  
  
"There is time, Mr Potter. I promise." Emma gave him a hard look and then smiled. "Don't make me hex you."  
  
Sighing, Harry flopped back against the bed. There was time, but he wasn't going to wait long.  
  
"If you don't play nicely, I won't tell you where his room is. No point in wasting your time wandering the hospital, is there?"  
  
\--  
  
Since he had behaved, Emma had returned with clothing and his room number. She'd warned him that he didn't look very good, his glamours were spent and that they'd had to cut his hair since some magical interactivity had caused it to catch fire.   
  
Harry knew that Draco was going to hate that, and it made him surprisingly sad that he would die looking less than proud.   
  
Death was like that.  
  
Harry had rounded the corner and was consulting the numbers on the wood doors when he was confronted with a stern, sharp face he hadn't spared a single thought for since he'd awakened.  
  
"Professor Snape."  
  
"Potter."  
  
Snape appeared drained and drawn and was wearing the peach St. Mungo's hospital robes. Whatever had hit him must've been severe that he was still checked in.  
  
"It is good to see you." Much to Harry's surprise, he wasn't just saying that. After all, Snape had helped him, even if it was his mess in the first place.  
  
"It is not altogether unpleasant to see you on this occasion." Snape's face remained lowered, for once not meeting Harry's eyes. It was the first time he'd ever seen Snape sheepish and he wasn't sure he liked it.   
  
Harry decided to write off that unease to worry for Draco. It was more comfortable that way.   
  
"How is he?" Harry asked, looking wistfully at the door.  
  
Having turned his glance away, Snape found the courage to look at him directly. Out of consideration and in the hope of getting an honest answer, Harry kept his eyes averted.  
  
"Draco is still asleep, I'm afraid. He was awake long enough to explain the majority of what happened in clear enough detail to save me some suffering, but he became overwhelmed by the potions as they sought to treat him. There is hope that he will awaken in the next couple of days, but only to say his last goodbyes." As if he had just heard the news, Snape slumped against the door frame and his gaze dropped to the floor again.   
  
"What of the rest of the Holies?" asked Harry, deciding to keep his mind off of Draco for the moment.   
  
"The Ministry stormed the church and arrested the remaining Holies. The names of the Inferi were kept along with their addresses and records of how to maintain the illusion."   
  
"Maintain the illusion?" Harry pulled at his t-shirt. It was obviously St. Mungo's issue-- thin, white and plain, but he hadn't felt cold until now.   
  
"The illusion that those people are still alive. They'll... continue to use the so-called sacraments to keep them alive, parceling out a few of the dead at the time so as not to alarm the Muggle world with a mass murder."   
  
That took Harry a couple of minutes to digest. The Ministry was going to keep these Muggles in stasis, continuing to limp along in their lives as Inferi. The families wouldn't know until they'd set up a believable means for them to die. "Isn't that a bit...?" Harry couldn't find a word for what that was.   
  
Snape nodded slowly, finally looking at Harry's face. "It is a bit...." Snape agreed as he gestured with his hand as if he could conjure the word from the air. "Is it not how we, as Magical Folk, always do things? It is vile when you think about how much and how often we must adjust Muggle memories, but it is for the good of who we are and who they are to continue to maintain the illusion that magic does not exist. Would those families be any happier knowing what led their family members to die? How ill-used they've been?"  
  
"Don't those families have a right to know?" asked Harry, but he knew that Snape was right. If the families knew of what had happened, they'd need to know why. Once they knew why, the magical world would be thrust upon them and there would likely be fear and panic. Harry didn't need to think any further than the Dursleys to know that some of the Muggle world wouldn't be able to cope with magic in general. Introducing the Wizarding world to Muggles via mass murder? That would not end well for anyone.  
  
"Right and wrong don't always apply, Potter. I should have thought that war would have apprised you of that." Snape stood fully up again, pushing against the door frame to right himself. He began to brush past Harry. "I am very tired."  
  
"But wait, I have... more questions." Harry whirled around, which was a huge mistake as given the potions still in his system, the action made him feel ill.   
  
"I am tired, Potter." Snape's voice held a warning tone, but Harry was not afraid.  
  
"Does the Ministry know of your complicity? It must not if you're not in Azkaban," said Harry.  
  
Snape paused, but did not turn back around. "If you wish to implicate me, that is your prerogative. I deserve it, I am certain. I only ask you not tell Draco. I could not bear him knowing, and it would only hurt him. He has so little time left."  
  
While Harry didn't believe that Draco would have been terribly upset on Snape's behalf, he likely would feel horrid that Snape had created the system of Inferi in order to test out potions to make him well. On that level, Harry was willing to keep it from him. "I am prepared to let Draco go on believing that the whole affair was Bellatrix's idea, but do you not think it will cross his mind that she was not so good with potions that she could not have created them?"  
  
"I think that when he awakes, he will have other things on his mind." Snape paused then, his shoulders hunched and his posture looked suddenly humbled. Harry thought that it was the least of what he deserved.  
  
"I intend to see you punished for your crimes, but I will wait until Draco has passed on. Should you try to leave, I _will_ hunt you down." Harry turned his back on Snape and reached for the doorknob.   
  
"Fair enough."  
  
Harry didn't hear the tell-tale shuffling of Snape's feet, so he assumed he must still be there. Perhaps he was waiting to be dismissed. So long as he was there, Harry decided to press on with something that was nagging at him that he didn't care to ask Draco about. "Did you provide him the Polyjuice potion?"  
  
Snape gasped quietly and Harry heard him shift his weight, obviously trying to stall for time. "Do you mean for his disguise as a priest?"  
  
"No, I mean for his disguise as Theodore Nott." Harry studied the grain on the door, following the thin, swirling lines-- markers for a dead tree's past existence.   
  
"How do you know it wasn't Theodore Nott?" Snape had turned around, Harry could practically feel Snape's eyes boring into him, willing him to turn around and make eye contact so that he could suss it for himself.  
  
Closing his eyes, Harry answered, "I know he's not alive. I did not kill him, but I know it isn't possible. I also know that it was Draco posing as him to get the information about the church. What I don't know is how he managed it."  
  
They stood in silence for what felt like hours. Snape's breathing was ragged, either by illness or fear. Harry imagined that Snape was probably trying to figure out if answering would put him in any deeper with the Ministry. Evidently deciding that it would not, Snape answered.  
  
"They were lovers when they were younger. He said he possessed an old brush that Nott never bothered cleaning. He seemed to believe that Nott was dead as well."  
  
Going over the memories again, Harry thought about the extra cracks. Not twigs, not a car backfiring. Draco must have seen them getting rid of the body. God help him, he must have seen it and known, but never uttered a word. Part of Harry wanted to know why, but this... wasn't the time for it. Maybe there never would be a time to ask about it.   
  
Snape was right. By now Harry should have known how quickly things fell into those shades of grey. Harry lowered his head and twisted the knob.  
  
"I will not report you to the Ministry on the condition that you retire from Hogwarts and I never see you again."  
  
Instead of a verbal acquiescence, Harry heard Snape shuffling away. Taking a deep breath, Harry entered Draco's room and took a seat next to his bed.  
  
\--  
  
Draco awoke in a clinical room that smelled of herbs and healing potions. St. Mungo's. Turning his head was painful; the throbbing ache in his forehead was nearly unbearable. Squinting at _The Daily Prophet_ in Harry's recognizable thick hands, he saw the headline, "Malfoy Thwarts Evil Plot." He eyed the picture and huffed. "I didn't even get a cool nickname."  
  
"Actually, they coined you the _Gay Crusader_ ," said Harry, giving a wry grin that told Draco that there was more to his troubles than a crap epithet.   
  
"That's nearly as bad as _The Chosen One_." Draco sneered and then let his head fall back against the pillow. He would've brought his hands up to his head, but they just felt too heavy to move. "But I guess not having a prophecy or any clue what was going on, they had to improvise. I expect they'll be wanting me to show up in tights?"  
  
Harry paled and carded his fingers through his hair. Definitely not good news. "There was a prophecy. It's just that no one was paying attention to it since most everyone thought you were-- well, selfish and er... otherwise... you. They thought it was for Ursius. 'The fair son of ill faith shall war against the holy of his blood.'"  
  
"Pfft. Now they tell me. Good thing I didn't know about that prophecy. Although it would've made tracking down who was behind it all easier. Only so many of my blood." Draco felt his chest tightening and his skin felt raw and sore. He finally looked down to his arms and winced at the show of dark red splotches. Something inside of him definitely didn't feel right; it felt strained and pulled inside, like a bad cramp.  
  
Taking Draco's hand, Harry appeared desperate to say something, but instead he just asked, "Why is it good you didn't know about the prophecy?"  
  
Draco looked at their conjoined hands and perked a brow. He didn't have any illusions that he was going to ever leave this bed. In fact, he was shocked he was alive at all after the curse Bellatrix had used. He knew his body to be systematically shutting down. Even if it weren't such a virulent hex, he was hardly in good health to fight it. "I would've run. It's one thing to choose a war, quite another to have it chosen for you."  
  
"Knowing your fate isn't so bad. You would've risen to it either way. I did." Harry leaned in and kissed Draco's forehead and slid his fingers through his hair, frowning that the battle had left his hair so in knots that rather than deal with it, the Healers had opted to trim it. Now Draco's hair was left short and spiky.   
  
"You always were a big Gryffindork about things like that. Wait..." His visage reflected his alarm that Harry's hand didn't go through longer hair and was petting a shorter crop. "My hair? They cut my hair?" he whined.  
  
Harry winced and nodded. "But Draco, you're... there's nothing they can do. There is a counter curse to the spell Bellatrix used, but intermingled with your disease..."  
  
"Yes, yes, I know, I'm going to die. I'm surprised I lasted this long. But was it _really_ necessary to chop my hair off?" Pulling a sluggish arm from under the covers, he brought his hand to his head and made a quiet whimper about his hair. "At least they fixed my face."  
  
"Sod your stupid hair, Draco. You're dying. You're going to die! You've only got a few days left! Didn't you hear me?" Harry's voice was hoarse and strained, his eyes prickling with tears as he leaned closer to Draco. He wondered if he wasn't in shock.   
  
"So it looks bad?" Draco rubbed at his head and grimaced.  
  
"Yes, just a few days, I'm afraid," whispered Harry. He kissed over the hand he was still clutching. "I'm sorry."  
  
"Fuck, Harry, would you pay attention? _How does my hair look_?" Draco's eyes were narrowed and furious. "How am I supposed to die with dignity with my hair chopped off? It probably looks worse than yours."  
  
Harry stood up, glaring incredulously at Draco's mottled face, which glowered back in defiance. "Would you take this seriously? Stop it with your hair!"  
  
"Get out." Draco's voice was low and frustratingly calm.   
  
"No."  
  
"Healer, show this man out of my room," snapped Draco, as if there were someone around to throw Harry out.   
  
Dropping Draco's hand, Harry stared at his lover and shook his head. "Fuck you, Malfoy. Fuck YOU."  
  
"I would, but I'm slightly disabled right now. Come back next life?"  
  
Pointing at the obvious tent in Draco's sheets, Harry said, "It would seem you are not so disabled as you think."  
  
Draco looked down at his erection and, apart from appearing embarrassed, looked a bit sad. "It's funny how close to the end I am and still can't seem to be satisfied."  
  
"I could..." Harry stepped forward, perhaps a bit too eagerly, which made Draco roll his eyes.  
  
Draco slid his hand over it and smirked up at Harry, who was already sizing up the bed to climb on top of him. Draco pulled the railing, dislodging it from its upright position so that it fell flat.   
  
Harry charmed the door shut and shucked off his trousers. "I can't believe I'm doing this."  
  
Biting his bottom lip as he pulled up his gown and pushed the covers down, Draco said, "I can't either."  
  
It took a moment for Harry to remember the proper charms for lubrication and protection. Through all of the trauma of the past few days, a lot of things were slipping his mind, and perhaps a few thoughts that weren't quite so wise were starting to overtake his good sense. But really, this could be the end for them, the end of... seeing Draco at all. Before he had a chance to second- or third-guess himself, Harry sunk down on Draco's prick, exhaling slowly as it filled him for the last time-- a bittersweet ache that quickly dulled.  
  
"Don't move a muscle," said Harry, as if that would mitigate the stress he was going to put Draco's ailing body through.  
  
"At least _one_ muscle's going to have to move or this won't work."  
  
"You know what I mean."  
  
Draco's eyes closed and his face took on an ethereal bliss. Even with his hair cut and poking out awkwardly, he was still so beautiful.   
  
"What will happen if I do move?" asked Draco.  
  
Harry ground Draco into him by propping himself up by his hands against the raised mattress on either side of Draco's shoulder. "I'll kill you," Harry answered.  
  
"Oh no, death," said Draco flatly.  
  
Maybe it was a deathbed faux pax to offer to kill a dying man, or maybe the situation was staring to catch up with Harry. Either way, he blushed. "I'll erm... stop moving."  
  
Draco was pushing against him feebly, but Harry tried not to encourage it, or recognize it. "Stop moving and I'll kill you," Draco wheezed. Gripping Harry's hips, Draco stared up at Harry as if he were holy. While this wasn't exactly God's work, it did feel pretty good.  
  
Harry gripped his cock, pulling and twisting it as he looked down at Draco, lips hinting at his amusement. "There's a lot of death in the air."  
  
"Hospitals," Draco drawled drolly.  
  
"Indeed." Harry rode Draco hard, watching his face carefully for any sign of actual stress beyond the natural reddening and puffing that came with sex.   
  
"I really could... die this way... you know." Draco's voice was broken, punctuated by exhausted thrusts and gasps for air.   
  
Harry truly hoped he got him off. He leaned down and kissed him deeply, tasting the remnants of potions on his tongue which all but concealed Draco's taste. "You could." He pulled himself faster and harder when he realized that Draco was watching the way his fingers thrummed over himself and the bobbing slickness of the head of his cock rolling through his fist.   
  
"It would be... a good... death," Draco gasped. His body stiffened after a few wild thrusts and the tip of his tongue pressed to his right canine, his mouth open to reveal these mechanical details of the expression of his pleasure.   
  
Harry felt the humid slickness and heard the unmistakable squelch of fluid; the warm feeling that Draco had gotten off inside of him thrilled him. At least they'd have this memory, at least they had one last time and Bellatrix couldn't steal this last happy memory. Harry watched Draco's face as the blood drained from it, leaving him pale and drowsy, but eyes still clear and focused on Harry's swift hand. It didn't take long for Harry to come, performing for Draco as he still felt his lover deep inside of him.   
  
By the time Harry had wiped his hand off with tissues next to the bed, Draco had drifted to sleep again. Harry leaned over him and rested his head on his chest to listen to his flagging heartbeat.   
  
\--  
  
The next day, Harry was still in Draco's room, continuing his vigil. By Draco's request, Millicent brought Ursius in to say his last goodbye. The decision had been hard for Draco to come to; Harry had encouraged him that his son deserved a last chance to see him, to at least have some final memory to cling to. If it was one thing that Harry knew well, it was how important a parent could be to a child-- even when they'd departed.  
  
"Daddy!" Chubby arms outstretched, he was a nearly unstoppable force to the bed. He was immediately squirming on top of Draco, who just whimpered and looked down at him.  
  
"Ursius," he whispered, smiling weakly at his son. Then Draco was asleep again.  
  
"Daddy, wake up... up now! Hold me!" Ursius appeared as petulant as Harry ever imagined Draco would be at that age.  
  
It took a moment's goading for Draco to awaken again and then he looked a bit confused at Ursius. "I am." Draco's arms lay at his side and he looked down at them in surprise.  
  
"Daddy, don't be funny, hold me!" The child leaned forward and left a sloppy kiss on Draco's cheek. Draco looked helplessly at Harry. Standing, Harry started to pull Ursius away. "No," Draco shook his head. "I want to hold him.  
  
Though Harry could tell that the movement was causing Draco great pain, he could see the neediness in his eyes to do this and so he lifted one arm as Millicent pulled the other and wrapped them around Ursius. "Daddy, why are they moving your arms?"  
  
It was a question Draco couldn't answer, as he was out again. "Your father's just weak right now, but he wants to hold you," Harry said. He kissed Ursius's head and Ursius grinned up at him. "Daddy loves me."  
  
"Very much," added Draco, who looked lazily up at Ursius. "And no matter what happens, you know that, right?"  
  
"You always say that!" Ursius kissed Draco's nose. Draco wrinkled it in distaste before his face went expressionless again.  
  
Millicent sniffled and then reached for Ursius. "Your daddy needs his sleep."  
  
"No, I miss him!" Ursius grabbed tighter to Draco, making the man gasp and his eyes open. "No!"  
  
Harry looked up at Millicent and down to Draco. "Ursius, come with me and we can get some Chocolate Frogs, hm? I think they sell them down the hall, hmm?"  
  
"Oooh, Froggies!" He kissed Draco again and then stretched out his arms to Harry. Draco didn't stir, but remained asleep as Harry pulled Ursius up and off of him and took him for some candy.  
  
Maybe it wasn't ideal because Ursius didn't understand it, but at least Draco had said some sort of goodbye.  
  
\--  
  
Draco lay in his cot, the springs making odd whirring noises as they massaged Draco's body. His head nodded lightly with the vibrations. Though his eyes were opened, they were a bit glassy. It took him a moment to realize that Harry was standing there. "Hey... oh... Hey!" he said, giving half a smile before it faded as his head turned and then rested against the mattress. "Hey," he slurred and reached out for Harry.  
  
Harry looked down at him and smiled wanly, promising himself not to cry. He knew Draco hated when he cried. He knew Draco hated when people seemed upset about his condition. Worst of all, he knew this was the end. "Hey," he said, finding conversation nearly impossible. What could he say to him, really? They couldn't talk about the weather, or what new programmes were coming up. This was the end. Though he'd lost many people over the course of the war, their deaths were either sudden or they were in comas until they faded. This was the first time he was confronted with someone alive who wouldn't be in a matter of hours. He took Draco's outstretched hand and kissed the back of it.  
  
The movement seemed to rouse Draco again. "So they told you?" he asked, his eyes were unfocused, he'd been warned that with Draco's organs failing he was on many potions to ease the pain of passing. Draco was not quite himself. His eyes fluttered closed and then open again as he fought against the drowsiness that kept claiming him.   
  
Harry scooted the chair closer; it made a horrid scratch against the laminate making him wince. "That this... yes... they told me." He longed to think of something brilliant to say. Something witty. Something that could encapsulate their time together and would make Draco know how much he loved him, how much he loved that he'd gotten to know him, and that he wished he'd known him sooner. But words didn't come. Not even tears came. He just stared dumbly at him.  
  
"So, that's it." Draco droned his words, looking at Harry for a moment and then he looked away. He swallowed and then squeezed Harry's hand back. "Not much to say about it." His eyes moved back to Harry, unfocused for a moment and then he squinted at him. "You got new glasses."  
  
"I did. They're... well, the old ones broke and it really seemed silly to replace them with the same ones I had. No more scar, different glasses, I'm practically a new man." He frowned, realizing he was babbling. He chided himself on renewing himself now knowing that Draco wouldn't have that chance. That Draco wouldn't get to mock his glasses. He was sure Draco would have something smart to say about them.  
  
"They look nice." Draco's grip loosened and his body slumped against the mattress. His face went slack.  
  
Harry began to panic and held Draco's hand harder; pressing his cheek against it, wishing he'd said something different. Here they were at the end and he was talking about his glasses? It was almost comical aside from how it was tearing his heart out. He wanted to cry. Fuck, he wanted to cry so much, but the tears weren't coming. He just felt shocked, empty, and perhaps even angry that he was here, so young seeing someone he loved lying there, unable to fight, just fading away.   
  
"Don't rip my arm off." Snapping his head up, Harry looked at Draco, who was grinning lazily at him. He let out a half laugh before his expression fell again and he just gazed at Harry. "Not that I think I'll be having an open casket. I just think that in spite of the pain medication... losing a limb would hurt."   
  
"I thought you were being cremated." Harry frowned; it was such morbid talk. Should he be talking about cremation, burial, caskets? But what else was there to talk about? The past was already in their heads. The present was miserable and for Draco, the future wasn't going to exist.   
  
"Well, at least I know something penetrated...." The words hung as Draco's head lolled against the pillow and he closed his eyes at the ceiling. A few minutes passed before Draco continued on as if nothing had happened. "Your thick skull."  
  
"I'll make sure you get what you wanted. I won't let... you'll get what you want, Draco. I swear it." Harry wrapped his arms around Draco a much as he could. He hugged him until Draco patted his shoulder to get him to move back.   
  
"The papers are a contractual obligation to be fulfilled. But I'm glad you'll be watching over them." Draco's voice was weary, still vacant. "But really, it's Milly's job."  
  
"I just want to...." Harry stared at Malfoy's face, peaceful again. He'd dozed off. He'd never felt quite so helpless. He was the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, the man who'd saved the Wizarding world from certain peril and yet, he was helpless here. So helpless. It was frustrating. He couldn't master death now any more than he ever could. But he wanted to. He wanted to do something, anything. Why wasn't there a spell or a potion that could fix this? Why was he just sitting there, helplessly watching the man he loved fade away before him? If there were only someone to duel or someone to fight, someone whose arse needed kicking. But there was nothing: just kidneys failing, a dead liver and no elixir to fix it. "I want to do something."  
  
Draco nodded. "Oh good. I've been waiting for you to ask. Could you just zap this pesky death thing away?" He turned his head to look at Harry. Again, that empty laugh for as long as he could sustain it. Squirming on the bed, he hissed through his teeth.  
  
"Pain?" Harry half stood, ready to get the nurse. He had no response to Draco's words; of course, he knew he was being mocked. If there were something that could be done, someone would have by now.   
  
"Just my back. Don't... bother, it's fine." He stretched and wriggled to his side and watched Harry.  
  
"I almost expected there to be porn running in the background." Sitting back down, looking uncertain, he tried to lighten the mood.  
  
Draco again gave his small titter. "They don't get any of the really dirty stuff I like. I don't want to die with lame soft porn going on. That's torture." He squeezed Harry's hand again.  
  
Harry opened his mouth, ready to offer to get him whatever he wanted, but Draco cut him off. "I love that you're here."  
  
"Thanks for letting me come in. They weren't going to let me since I wasn't family." Harry reached out and slid his fingers through Draco's silken hair. It was still short and choppy and not as silken as it had been.   
  
"I was bored. No porn." He faded out again, going limp against the mattress.   
  
Harry sighed and kissed each knuckle of his hand desperately and then leaned in to kiss his lips. "I love you."   
  
Eyes fluttering open, Draco looked over Harry's face in such close proximity. "Me too."  
  
Though his eyes were glassy, Harry thought he could see it, that spark. Something inside of Draco that wanted forgiveness for his frailty, for his inability to say what he knew he should. But the look gave way to snarky defiance. He wasn't going to say it; and somehow, that was perfect. Harry pressed kisses over his face until Millicent came in alone this time, no Ursius.   
  
Draco's eyes closed, he didn't open them again.   
  
\--  
  
Harry watched Ursius fussing with the sleeve of his robe and look at himself critically in the mirror. He looked so much like Draco at that age that it brought back a flood of memories of him and Draco being measured by Madam Malkin for the first time-- Draco prattling on stupidly about blood purity while Harry seethed. How ironic that tainted blood was what killed him.  
  
It was painful to look at Ursius, even now. Harry had promised himself that he would be there for all of those things that Draco couldn't be. Millicent let him move into the Manor, although he suspected that was mostly to do with the free babysitting.   
  
When Ursius started calling Harry "dad" no one objected.   
  
He'd walked the halls of the Manor, chatting politely with the portraits along the way until he got to the end of that certain corridor where all of the Malfoys stood, side-by-side, each painted with their significant others except for Draco, who sat alone, youthful and proud, in a blood-red wingback chair. He wore all black and though his eyes were melancholy, he bore no signs of the illness that took him, nor was his hair cut short. What he was, was Draco as he wanted to be, as he was meant to be, pale, pointed and proud.   
  
Unlike in his final years, his eyes both followed Harry in synch as he walked before him, ignoring the jeers of the Malfoy ancestors he offended with his presence.  
  
"Still here, Potty?  
  
"You know how Gryffindors are. Besides, I made you a promise." Harry stood close to Draco's portrait, reaching out to stroke the fine lines of paint and the coarseness of the canvas. Still, Draco was animate. Whatever magic took Malfoys had placed him here. "Keeping the seat warm for me?"  
  
Draco sighed and reached out in his own way, flat. Two-dimensional, unable to quite reach. "Does this mean you've found a way around the charm? You know I really will love you forever if I'm not stuck with Millicent here."  
  
"I may have, but the Ministry won't let me test it. They believe that families, including portraits, should be as the initial charms intended." Draco looked down the row at Great-Great-Great grandfather Edwin Malfoy, pictured alone and somber. Later in life, he had divorced his wife and taken a male lover that had not been recognised as being his. As such, he remained eternally alone forever in his portrait. "You'll find a way, Potty, it's what you do."  
  
"I haven't given up hope yet." Harry smiled and caressed the canvas again and then settled into the seat before it to talk about his day.


End file.
